Batman & Benson 8
by Mcfergeson
Summary: In a time of dire crisis, Batman and Olivia may well face their greatest threat ever as Bane, an unnaturally fearsome assassin, arrives in Gotham City with one goal: to kill the Dark Knight.
1. Chapter 1

_Law & Order: SVU is created by Dick Wolf and is owned by NBC/Universal. Batman and the Bat-universe was created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger, and is owned by DC Comics. I'm not making any money from this story, nor do I claim any possession over these characters. _

_This story is a work of fiction, any relation to the characters and situations within to real world people or events is completely unintentional. The main 'ships are as follows: Bruce Wayne/Rachel Dawes, Olivia Benson/Alex Cabot, Dick Grayson/Chloe Sullivan. Now come take my hand, dear reader, and please stay close to me while I try and guide you through the shadows. _

**Batman & Benson 8**

**Chapter One**

The jungle was a bustling, living thing that surrounded him on all sides. Yet as he moved through the thick foliage, as he deftly made his way through the inky blackness of night, he could sense the other living things retreating from him. They kept their distance from him in a wide radius, much the same way how all timid prey steered clear of a true predator. But the particular animals that dwelled around him within the jungle need not have feared, for he wasn't after them.

He always hunted humans. He specialized in tracking them down and killing them.

It was something he had come to enjoy.

The night vision equipped within the goggles on his mask flared brilliantly when a white shaft of light stabbed through the canopy of leaves above him. Switching his goggles to regular vision, he saw that he had arrived at his latest prey's hidey hole. The vast compound had been carved out of the jungle just recently; intelligence gathered from his employer said that his prey, Alonzo Diaz, had built the place as a refuge, a sanctuary away from the troubles of the world. When he double-crossed the wrong people, Diaz had fled here, thinking it would be utterly safe.

But Diaz couldn't be more wrong.

He scaled the outer wall with ease. Once on top, he crouched down and surveyed the landscape. There was a large open space between him and the house. Standing in the grassy area were several armed bodyguards who milled about, looking bored.

But the quiet was shattered when the dogs all instantly took notice of him and began barking fiercely. This perked up the guards, who began to shout excitedly. It would appear that any plans of sneaking into the place had just been thrown out the window. It would now have to be a full-on, frontal assault.

He smiled under his mask. He would have it no other way.

He checked the watch that was strapped to his left wrist. But instead of telling the time, it was a countdown that showed he had ninety minutes left. It would be far more time than he'd needed.

He jumped from the wall and hit the soft grassy ground with a roll. He sprang up to his feet just as two of the dogs charged at him. He effortlessly punched both of the dogs out of his way as he began his charge towards the house. When a third dog attacked, he grabbed it by the back of the head and snapped its neck with one flick of his massive hand.

Bullets whizzed by his head as he continued his charge across the open ground towards the house. One of the bullets struck the bulletproof vest that he wore, another cut open a bloody trench on his bare shoulder. But he just kept coming…until he reached the patio and smashed his booted foot right into the face of a kneeling bodyguard, instantly killing him.

He picked up the dead man and flung him at two other bodyguards, knocking them down to the concrete floor. Before they even had time to recover, he reached down and ripped out the throat of one man while he caved in the forehead of the other with the heel of his boot.

He paused long enough to gaze into the house. There was only blackness in the interior that lay beyond the patio doors; yet he knew better than to just walk right in. He picked up one of the dead bodyguards and flung him right through the plate glass windows. Once the body was inside, it began a crazy dance as it was hit from all sides by bullets.

While the second team of bodyguards were busy shooting a dead man, he plowed his way straight through the wood-paneled wall. Taking out the load-bearing wall, he knocked a good chunk of the house down on most of the bodyguards, instantly killing them. A wooden support beam that held up the ceiling had crashed down right on top of one man, almost splitting his body in half. The few dazed bodyguards who managed to survive the cave in were easily killed by him.

Going upstairs, he found Diaz hiding in his bedroom like a sniveling little bitch. He was actually crying on his knees, pleading, "¡Párese! ¡Por favor no máteme! ¡Por favor, señor! ¡No máteme!"

How many of his prey had spent their last few seconds of life pleading for mercy? Asking for mercy from him was as futile as trying to squeeze water from a stone. He held Diaz down on the floor by the throat with one hand, and plunged his other hand right through the man's chest. Diaz was still alive, briefly, when he ripped out his still-beating heart. The look of wide-eyed shock was forever frozen on his dead face.

He wrapped the now-still heart in a pillow case that he took from the bed and placed it within his backpack. This was the evidence that his employer demanded that showed he had killed Diaz. And this is what he would get.

However, once he stood outside of the eerily silent compound, he paused. There was a smell in the air, one that was strangely familiar to him. He was originally going to ignore it…but this sweet, smoky smell stirred something within him. It was…Jasmine. He abruptly caught a flicker of some faint memory from his childhood.

His childhood? What childhood? He _had_ no childhood. He was born a monster in the worst prison in Santa Prisca, Peña Dura. They told him that he had been a science experiment that had been fused together from the body parts of executed prisoners, much like the Frankenstein monster. But he had always secretly doubted that story. Several thorough self-examinations of his naked body in the privacy of his cage did not turn up any telltale surgical scars on his skin. And if he really was a combination of several different men, then where the hell were these memories coming from?

He checked the countdown on his watch. It told him he now had just over an hour left before he would need his next injection of Venom. It had taken him at least an hour to get here on foot. His employer was always careful to dispatch him right near when the Venom would give out, with just barely enough time for him to complete his mission and get back home.

'Just like being kept on a leash,' he thought bitterly. Still, the Venom was what maintained his super strength and intelligence, and without that, he would be of little use to his employer, who would have him killed. He owed a lot to Dr. Hilliard for devising the Venom, and for so much more.

It was the thought of her, of how badly Dr. Hilliard would be treated if he tried to escape, that finally made him turn and head back. He returned just as much for her sake as for his own.

Because, if nothing else, Bane was a man of honor who always stood by his allies.

**B&B**

Deanna Hilliard sat reading one of these cheapie romantic novels on her eBook reader when the alert caught her attention. Her auburn hair was pulled back into a braid, and she was clad in a typical white doctor's lab coat. But the clothing she wore underneath the coat was atypical of what a doctor would normally wear. The oppressive jungle heat, which could still be felt even in the air conditioned control room she was in, forced her to wear just a tank top and khaki shorts.

Her medical career had once been the stuff of legend, until that accident. 'Who knew how much would change by a simple misjudgment in dosage?' she bitterly wondered. 'How just a few milligrams more of a life-saving medicine could destroy a promising career, and send me in hiding in this damn jungle?'

But all thoughts of her crushed dreams were vanquished when Deanna stared up in horror at the massive computer monitor on the wall. It showed a map of the jungle just outside of this compound, with the target area, Alonzo Diaz's home, highlighted in red. The cold blue dot that was moving away from Diaz's compound was Bane. This image was being recreated from the GPS chip that had been implanted within him.

What horrified Deanna was the fact that Bane was now moving _away_ from Diaz's compound, heading west, in the opposite direction of home. It was this new development that had set off the alarm.

"What the hell is happening?" Ricardo Deles said, as he entered the control room. Clad in a robe and slippers, the man gestured at the screen with scorn. "Why is he going off mission?"

"He performed the mission," Deanna quickly spoke up. "He was at Diaz's home for a period of more than twenty minutes."

Deles stabbed a finger at the wayward blue dot on the screen. "Then why is he not immediately returning to base? Why is he just standing there?"  
Deanna, at a loss for words, could only shake her head. "I don't know…."

"You don't know?" Deles roared at her. "Thanks to you, all the money I poured into this project will be lost because he decides to take a little walk in the jungle?"

Despite her normal self-restraint, Deanna was overwhelmed by a flash of anger. "If it were not for me, he would have died back in that prison in Santa Prisca, Mr. Deles. My Venom serum saved him."

"And were it not for _my_ money, your precious Venom serum would never have existed in the first place," he pointedly reminded her. He threw his hand in a dismissive gesture at the screen. "What little good it's done me so far! Instead of an obedient super warrior, who obeys my every command, I've got nothing more than a petulant little brat who bucks my authority every chance he gets. This is not what I paid for!"

Deanna was about to remind him that, if Deles had wanted an obedient super soldier, then he should have recruited an obedient soldier for the experiment. Instead, she had to work with an unknown convict that was chosen by the psycho sadist wardens at Peña Dura; a convict whom she knew next to nothing about prior to saving his life with the Venom.

But before she could even speak, Deanna hesitated when she glanced back at the screen. "Wait, he's turning around! Look, see? He's coming back home, now!"

But Deles still was not pleased. "He returns only because _he_ chooses to?"

"He has to come back, Mr. Deles. The Venom…."

"The Venom should control him to the point where he is bent to my will, and my will alone!" Deles barked at her. "These little acts of rebellion are unacceptable! I knew we should have lobotomized him."

"Then he would have been comatose," Deanna said with disgust. "You can hardly bend a vegetable to your will, now, can you?"

She never actually felt the blow, but before she knew it, Deanna was sent reeling from it. Her body bounced off of the table and she landed face-down on the floor. Deles reached down and grabbed her hair and hauled her up just enough so that they were face to face. "You should really watch the tone you take with me, Doctor. For I am the one who pays all of the bills, yes?"

"Y-Yes," Deanna nervously stammered. She tasted blood on her lips.

"And seeing that I pay all of the bills, then I am the one in charge, yes?" Deles asked. He didn't wait for an answer. "I've decided that I have had enough of Bane. He is to be terminated. Do not give him the Venom when he returns. Just let him wither and die."

Deles released her hair and started walking away. "I want to start the entire project over, with another test subject. And this time, you had better hope things go well." He glared back at her over his shoulder. "Because, if they don't, then I shall have _you_ terminated!"

He left her then. Deanna got up and quickly cleaned her bloody bruises as best she could with shaking hands. She took a deep breath in an effort to try and calm her nerves. She didn't want Bane to see her in a state like this; he always could read her emotions very easily.

Before she entered the main lab, where Bane's prison cell was located, Deanna stopped dead in the hallway. The realization had just struck her, full bore, that Deles had ordered Bane's termination.

"Oh, God," Deanna whimpered. The attachment she felt for Bane went far beyond that of what a scientist had for a favorite specimen. Despite his gruesome facial deformity, he was in all respects the most perfect man she had ever laid eyes on. And although she had tried very hard to maintain a professional detachment, Deanna had developed quite the crush on him.

And so the thought of having Bane put down like a rabid animal was doubly horrific for Deanna. In spite of his great strength, killing him would be easy enough to do, for Bane's greatest asset was also his great weakness: the Venom. Perhaps it would be better, more humane, to just kill him outright, instead of letting him waste away slowly by denying him the Venom. Deanna was tempted to just tell Bane to run away, but without a steady supply of Venom, he would still die a horrible death in the jungle.

Not knowing what to do, Deanna just shook her head in despair.

"This doesn't have to be the end, Doctor," a voice called out from the shadows.

Deanna, thinking was it Deles, let out a screech of terror.

Yet the man who strolled out of the shadows was not Deles. Deanna was shocked to see that it was Deles' American houseguest. James Varlis, the disgraced former Senator.

"What are you doing here?" Deanna asked, trying to quickly reconstitute herself. "This is a restricted area."

"Not for long. Not once you've terminated Bane." He nodded when she gave him a shocked look. "Yes, I confess that I've been spying on you. And I overheard everything. Bane has been marked for termination by Deles because of what he perceives as being an attitude problem. Hell, in America, an attitude problem is not only tolerated, it's required just to survive on the streets."

"What do you want?" Deanna angrily asked. "Why are you here?"

"I'm here because I am a man who does not take no for an answer," Varlis said. "For instance, when your boss, Deles, originally turned down my request to hire Bane, that wasn't good enough for me. I needed to hear the answer from Bane himself. But first, I needed to _find_ Bane." He smiled. "Imagine my surprise when I found out that Bane was right under this very same roof."

Deanna just stared at him, wide-eyed. "How?"

"You might have heard that Maria and I have become quite an item these past two weeks," Varlis said. "Maria told me all about how Bane was based here. She even told me where your little lair was located within the mansion. I can be a very persuasive man."

All Deanna knew on that count was that the cheery young servant woman had abruptly gone missing. When Deanna had asked after Maria, she was tersely told that Maria was off working for a special client. She wondered what kind of work would require Maria to be locked away within Varlis' private suite. But, having heard of the S&M scandal that caused Varlis to be kicked out of the Senate, Deanna really shouldn't be too surprised that he managed to make Maria talk. The mere thought of the things he did to the helpless Maria made Deanna shudder inwardly.

"You still didn't answer my question, Mr. Varlis," Deanna said. "What do you want?"

"It's really quite simple, doctor," he said. "I want to hire Bane personally. I want Bane to come work for me in America. There's a very special job that I need handled. And Bane would be perfect for it. Would you think he would be interested?"

**B&B**

Bane returned to the mansion with just minutes to spare. As he entered through the special hidden doorway at the base of the structure, he could already feel himself growing weak. His body cried out for the Venom.

The doorway that he had entered through had sealed itself behind him, and it led directly to his prison cell within the main lab. The steel bars were electrified, and Enrique and Juan, who were officially assistants to Dr. Hilliard, stood waiting for him on the other side. They were really nothing more than hired muscle who had been placed within the lab by Deles to insure that his every order was followed to the letter.

They were both armed with large caliber automatic machine guns. Once Bane strode up to the bars, the men instantly aimed their guns at him.

'Something is wrong,' Bane realized, as he felt his hackles begin to rise. 'Something here has changed, for the worse….'

"Where is Dr. Hilliard?" Bane asked.

"She hasn't shown up, yet," Enrique replied. "Probably just as well…."

Bane could smell the nervousness from them; they were both so fearful they stank of it. Yet in his weakened state, and locked within this damnable cage, there was little he could do about anything right now.

Yet Bane quickly realized that he could use the cage itself as cover. If he backed far enough away from them, the bars would block some of their bullets, thus forcing them to come inside the cage to kill him. And then Bane would have them. For even in his weakened state, he might still be able to….

His tactical musings were sidelined when Deanna entered the room. Enrique and Juan both frowned at her in puzzlement as she busied herself in getting a needle ready.

"Doctor, he is not to receive any Venom," Juan sternly told her.

Deanna was about to walk over to the cage to give Bane the dosage of Venom when she stopped to stare at them dramatically. "What are you talking about?"

"Mr. Deles called us himself," Enrique said. He stared suspiciously at her. "Bane is to be terminated. Mr. Deles told us that you already knew this. Please step away from the cage, doctor."

"Yes, of course," Deanna said, as she backed away from the cage, the needle still in her hand.

As she crossed behind Juan, he let out a shout of pain when Deanna abruptly stabbed him with the needle.

Bane watched in horror as Enrique raised his weapon to shoot at Deanna, only to be shot down himself by a white haired man who stepped through the door with a gun in his hand.

Deanna ran over to Enrique's fallen body, then turned, enraged, to the man who'd just saved her life. "Did you have to kill him?"

"No time for formalities, Doctor," the man said. He gazed at Bane with a mixture of awe and fear. "Hello, Bane. My name is James Varlis."

"I have heard of you," Bane said. "You are the guest who has been staying here these past few weeks."

"Yes, I've been enjoying Mr. Deles' hospitality, just like you."

"I am not a guest of Deles," Bane told him. "I am his slave."

Varlis shook his head in the negative. "No longer."

Deanna switched off the electricity to the cell bars, when she opened the door, Bane saw that she held a needle that contained Venom in her hand. She quickly injected him with it, and Bane could already feel the wave of relief flow through his body. "I only gave Juan an injection of tranquilizer," she explained to him. "I didn't give him any Venom. It would have killed him."

"What is happening?" he asked her. "Is what they say is true?"

"Yes, Deles wants to kill you and start over," she tearfully said. She shook her head. "I just couldn't do it! I don't want to lose you!"

He gently caressed the side of her face. How long had he waited to do this simple gesture of affection? How long had he just wanted to be this close to her, without the damned bars between them? She grabbed his massive hand and kissed it tenderly.

Bane gently turned Deanna's face to the side, to get a better look at the bruises on her cheek. "Who did that to you?"

"Deles," she replied, as she uneasily covered the bruises with her hand.

He removed her hand from her face and held it in his own. "He will never touch you again. This I swear."

"I see you two are more than just good friends," Varlis said sardonically.

"Why are you helping us, senor?" Bane asked him. "What do you want?"

"He wants to hire you," Deanna replied. "To kill someone for him."

Bane nodded. So Varlis wasn't helping them out of the kindness of his heart. From what Bane had heard of the man, it made sense. "And if I kill this person for you, then what?"

"We part company," Varlis said. "You and Dr. Hilliard can move on and get married, or just shack up, whatever…I could really care less what you do afterwards. As long as you do the job that I'm paying you for, first. You will be well-paid for the job, with all expenses paid for, all completely separate from your salary."

"How much?" Bane asked.

"One million dollars, upon completion of the job," Varlis replied. "Free and clear."

Bane nodded in satisfaction. A chance to finally live his life on his own terms, as his own man? How could he turn this down? "And what would that job be, senor?"

"Go to Gotham City and kill the Batman."

Bane just smiled broadly underneath his mask. He had to admit that he really liked this sudden turn of events.

"You interested?" Varlis asked.

Bane nodded at Deanna. "She comes with me. And _we_ control the Venom. We come and go as we please while I hunt down the Batman on my own terms; no cages, no more being on a leash, no more slavery."

"Mr. Bane, from all of my research into assassins, you are the only one who I've found who is truly capable of killing the Batman," Varlis said. "I would very much like to hire your services to rid me, and my God-fearing country, of a bothersome freak in a fright mask. I'm not interested in owning you, or any such nonsense. Once the job is done, once Batman is dead, then you get paid and we go our separate ways."

Bane gazed down at Deanna. "Would you join me? When my task in Gotham City is done, you and I can go anywhere in the world we want."

"Darling, I'd live in hell with you, if need be," she said, as she kissed the side of his mask.

"We have been in hell," Bane told her. "But now it's time for us to reach up for heaven."

"What's it going to be, Bane?" Varlis said, somewhat impatiently. "You ready to take on the Bat?"

"I look forward to the challenge," Bane said. "But there is something I must do here, first."

**B&B**

"Red Bull to Tweety-bird, come in, over."

Katie let out an annoyed sigh as she clicked the miniature mike hidden within the halter top that she wore. 'How the hell did we come up with Tweety-Bird for my code name?' she wondered, and not for the first time tonight.

"Tweety-Bird here, Red Bull," Katie said, as inconspicuously as she could. A glance around the deserted corner she stood on told Katie that it was safe for her to speak to J'onn, for there wasn't anybody within sight of her. But Katie, knowing full well that the Gotham Slasher carefully stalked his victims before he attacked, didn't want to make a stupid mistake that might scare him off. So she spoke in a whisper, out of the corner of her mouth: "What is it?"

"Are you all right? You look very cold."

'Awww, he's worried about me,' Katie thought, as she felt her heart melt into a pile of goo. "I'm fine, Red Bull. I _am_ cold, but I'm fine."

"You should put on a sweater, Tweety-Bird," he chided her. "It may be warm for November, but it is still November."

"What kind of a hooker would I be if I suddenly put on a sweater?" Katie bluntly asked.

That was answered by a riotous chorus of laughter within her earpiece, no doubt from the SVU detectives and uniformed GCPD cops who were all watching her from their hidden positions. Katie smiled slightly, pleased to have been able to liven up the monotony of the stake out.

"All right, everybody knock it off," a familiar female voice barked over the radio. "Let's stayed focused on the job and keep the airwaves clear, huh?"

"Sorry, Inspector Benson!"

"Sorry, boss!"

"So, so, sorry!"

The barrage of apologies over the radio was in and of itself so funny that it was all Katie could do to keep from bursting out into laughter. Yet her slight smile faded once she glanced up and saw the man standing across the street from her. He was tall, and wore a suit with an overcoat. Katie couldn't see his face in the illumination cast by the streetlight, because he also wore a fedora.

'A fedora?' Katie thought, as the man's suspicious nature immediately put her on guard. 'Other than The Question, who the hell wears a hat like that in this day and age?'

The way he stared at her so unnerved Katie that she then calmly brought her hand up to her head and ran it through her blond hair. "Hey, how you doing?" she called to the man. "Looking for a good time, tonight?"

**B&B**

"Sweet Jesus, what is this, frigging kindergarten?" Olivia muttered at Alex. "I asked everybody to be quiet, and now they're all flapping their lips, apologizing to me!"

Alex, who leaned against the counter behind Olivia in the police command trailer, just smiled. She was clad in a charcoal gray turtleneck that highlighted her golden hair. "It's been a long, boring stake out. People are getting tired." She abruptly stifled a yawn. "I know I am!"

"We've got somebody!" Andrea announced over the radio. "Katie just gave the signal! Heads, up everybody!"

Everyone in the police command trailer suddenly sat up and stared at the bank of monitors, which showed different views of Katie, working undercover as a hooker, standing on the corner. A man stood just across the street on the opposite corner, staring at her.

She saw Katie give the signal, which was to slowly run her hand through her hair. "Everybody watch this prick!" Olivia commanded into the microphone. "Snipers, you got a clear shot?"

"Negative, Inspector," came the reply. "He's directly behind the utility pole."

"Damn it! Somebody tell me you got a clear shot at him!" Olivia demanded.

Alex leaned over and grabbed her shoulder. "Hey, easy! This might not be him, you know! Last thing you need is to blow away an innocent man."

Olivia nodded as she let out a heavy sigh. Since he started his sick murder spree the week before Halloween, the Slasher had become the number one priority for the Gotham City SVU. All detectives, all resources within the SVU were turned towards hunting down this psychopath, who had carved up three poor women in almost as many weeks. All of the victims had been prostitutes, which led to this very dangerous stakeout, where they presently used Katie as bait.

Olivia stared at the image of the man, who had not moved from the corner. Alex could well be right; this could just be a regular john looking for action. But still, there was something about this guy that unnerved her. For one thing, he always managed to keep his face hidden. "All right, let's take it slow and easy," Olivia commanded her troops. "Let's just watch this guy carefully and see what he does."

No sooner did she say that than the man suddenly disappeared from view within a blur of motion. "What just happened?" Olivia asked, dumbfounded. "Where the hell did he….?"

Alex suddenly pointed at one of the monitors. "OLIVIA!"

Olivia saw the man had already knocked Katie to the ground and now loomed over her with a gleaming blade held up in his hand. He had moved with such unnatural speed that it was hard for Olivia to believe her eyes.

"MOVE IN! EVERYBODY MOVE IN, NOW!" Olivia shouted.

Olivia leapt out of the van and pulled her Glock from its holster. As she ran across the street, Olivia smiled when she saw J'onn was already running over to Katie before anyone else.

'This case is a good as closed,' she thought, grinning.

Then her grin was replaced by a look of horror at what happened next.

**B&B**

'Jesus, this son of a bitch is fast!' Katie thought, as she landed roughly on the pavement from the blow the man had just given her. She pulled out her service gun, which she had strapped to her thigh under her skirt.

But Katie was stunned to see the man had grabbed the gun and yanked it from her hand with inhuman speed. Then the man held up his right hand in an overly dramatic gesture, making sure Katie saw the gleaming blade just before he had stuck her with it.

And then J'onn showed up.

He slammed into the Gotham Slasher with full Martian Manhunter force, knocking him off of Katie and right up against the wall. Katie was stunned to see the bricks in the wall had been smashed inward from their impact.

"Drop the knife," J'onn roughly commanded, "or else I'll…."

But he never finished that threat, for the Gotham Slasher abruptly grabbed J'onn by the throat and flung him through the main display window of a dress shop.

Katie picked up her gun from the ground and aimed it straight at the Gotham Slasher. "FREEZE! GCPD!"

"You stinking little bitch cop," the man growled hatefully at her. His mouth, which was all Katie could see under the brim of his hat, was pulled back in a snarl.

Then he took off in a blur.

J'onn came climbing out of the shattered display window. Katie got up and went to him, just as all of her backup converged on them. The corner was suddenly crowded with an army of cops, both plainclothes and uniformed.

"Where is he?" J'onn asked, looking dazed. "Where did he go?"

Katie just shrugged. "He just disappeared in a blur! He's as quick as lightning!"

"He's also very strong, as well," J'onn muttered, as he rubbed his throat. "Almost supernaturally strong…."

Inspector Benson came running up to them with D.A. Cabot at her side. "Are you two all right?" Benson asked in shock.

"I'm fine, Inspector," Katie replied.

"As am I." J'onn nodded. "It would appear that the Gotham Slasher is a meta, Inspector."

After exchanging a stunned look with Alex, Olivia wearily said, "Shit…."

**B&B**

They were originally supposed to have been flying an aerial patrol in support of Olivia and her team's stake out of the Gotham Slasher, but something had caught the Dark Knight's attention.

Something very odd.

Batman glanced down at the warehouse, above which he slowly circled around in the Prowler. Looking at it with the naked eye, it was just like any other large storage facility on the Gotham docks. It sat dark and silent, or so it appeared that way, at least.

Yet when he viewed it through the Prowler's thermal sensors, Batman saw a large heat signature emitting from within the structure…a structure which should be cold and empty at this time of night. This heat signature was what caught his attention when he flew over earlier.

"Looks like your hunch was correct," Robin said. "Judging from the thermal, there's a lot of major activity in a storage facility in the middle of the night. Any way to tell what it could be?"

"There's _one_ way," Batman answered. He brought the Prowler in low over the roof of the structure and parked it in hover mode above the skylight. "You ready to go exploring?"

Robin just grinned. "Always. Just hope we don't wind up disturbing somebody completely innocent who's just doing some late night work."

They dropped down from the Prowler from their grapple lines and landed silently on the roof of the massive warehouse. Creeping over to the skylight, Batman saw that it was darkened. But when he switched to night vision within his cowl, he saw that the skylight had been covered up from inside with wooden boards that had been painted black.

"Looks like the chances of us dropping in on an innocent person has now become pretty remote," Batman muttered.

"That's Gotham City for you," Robin said with a sigh, "the place where evil never sleeps."

"Neither do we," Batman replied. He gestured at a stairwell door. "Through there."

Batman opened the door by using muffled explosive pellets on the lock, then he took point as they went down the steps. The interior was completely dark, so he and Robin switched to the night vision option in their masks. They saw that they were in a storage area that contained a multitude of boxes, and little else. The place was devoid of any life.

But Batman heard something. It was a man's voice, sounding as if he was a vast distance away. Batman glanced in the direction where it came, and saw a light shining up through a metal railing about twenty feet away from them.

Batman and Robin snuck over to the railing and, switching off their night vision, peered downstairs.

The sight he saw instantly made Batman sick to his stomach.

There was a long table below them, with children seated in high-backed chairs. All of the boys and girls, who wore funny looking party hats, sat with impassive looks on their faces, as if they were in a trance…with one exception.

It was a young blonde girl who sat at the head of the table. Clad in a simple light blue dress, she sat tied with ropes. She struggled and furiously screamed through her gag.

However, the host of the party ignored her frantic efforts to free herself, instead he just leaned over and poured her a cup of tea. He was a short man in a suit, with a large, oversized hat. "Now, now, Alice, is that any way to behave?" he chided her. "After all, this tea party is being held in your honor! The least you could do is enjoy it."

'Jervis Tetch, AKA The Mad Hatter,' Batman thought, enraged. He wondered where this twisted son of a bitch had skulked off to after escaping from Arkham Asylum during the Joker's big break out. 'Well, now we can scratch one more scumbag off the Most Wanted list….'

Tetch had been infamous for creating mind control devices which he used on people to force them to recreate scenes from Alice in Wonderland, for which he had a strange obsession. Here, he apparently had caught a group of young runaways in his vicious web. But the girl who was seated at the head of the table was obviously not under his control.

The girl, who looked no older than twelve, let out a terrified muffled squeal from under her gag when Tetch abruptly made a motion to strike her. "If you refuse to play along, Alice, my dear, then I'm afraid I'll have no choice but to put you to sleep…permanently!"

"I've seen enough," Batman snarled, as he shot a grappling hook into the ceiling above them.

"Agreed," Robin said, as he did the same. "Let's crash this party."

Batman swung over the railing and dropped down into the bizarre tea party with Robin at his side. The bound girl's eyes grew wide above her gag as she regarded Batman and Robin with renewed hope.

"Egad!" the Mad Hatter shouted, once he saw them. "Cursed interlopers!"

"Your sick little game is over, Tetch!" Batman roared.

The Mad Hatter grandly hugged the bound Alice from behind. "A game though this may be, I'm just as much a guest at this here tea party as thee!"

Robin was about to charge him just then, but Batman held him back, for he saw the knife that Tetch now held at the girl's throat. Batman started talking as a diversion as he slowly reached for a bat dart from his utility belt. "You mean you're not hosting this little soirée, Tetch? What a surprise, I thought you liked tea parties."

"As much as I do enjoy a good party with tea," the wild-eyed Tetch said, still holding the knife at the girl's throat, "this one has nothing to do with me."

"Excuse me, but what's with the rhyming?" Robin asked, annoyed. "I mean, seriously, as if this little dude wasn't creepy enough…now he _rhymes_?"

"He rhymes like that whenever he's nervous," Batman replied. He got a grip on the bat dart. He palmed it. "And believe me, he's got good reason to be right now."

"My dear Batman, we all have something to fear," the Mad Hatter said, with a leering grin. "I'm afraid whenever the Red Queen is near."

The sudden rush of air from behind Batman warned him of trouble. "ROBIN, DUCK!"

They both dived down just in time to avoid being hit by what looked like a lethal looking baseball bat. Batman and Robin whirled around at the sight of two humongous men, twins who looked exactly alike, who stood holding baseball bats that had been converted into deadly battleaxes with blades, spikes and other sharp implements sticking out of the smooth wood.

Batman noted that the two men, who wore baseball caps, also had the same dazed looks as the children seated at the table.

"Have you met my boys, Tweedleedum and Tweedleedee?" the Mad Hatter said, his voice echoing through the cavernous chamber. "They've been sent by the Red Queen to watch over me."

Batman risked a glance over his shoulder. He saw the diminutive Mad Hatter was backing away from them, holding the bound girl in front of him with the knife still at her throat. The bastard was using the girl to escape. If Batman charged Tetch now, he could harm the girl; not to mention the threat he still faced from these sleepy-eyed goons. As much as he hated to ignore the girl, Batman had to deal with these punks first in order to save her.

He turned towards the hulking goon who faced him and growled, "You want me? Then bring it, kid! We haven't got all night."

As if in response, the zombie-eyed goons charged, holding their bats up high.

And Batman charged straight at them, his hands clenched into fists and primed and ready for whatever was to come.

For once again, he was in the thick of battle.

**To Be continued...**


	2. Chapter 2

**Batman & Benson 8**

**Chapter Two**

Tweedleedum and Tweedleedee let out a grunt in unison as they charged at their foes with their bats held up high.

But Batman had already charged ahead and tackled Tweedleedum, hitting him directly in the gut and shoving him to the floor. The blow knocked the bat out of Tweedleedum's hands. Batman reached up to snatch the hat from the man's head, breaking the mind control which had turned him into Tetch's mindless brute, yet Tweedleedum blocked his hand and landed a punch directly to Batman's jaw, knocking him off of him.

Tweedleedum got to his feet and lumbered over to Batman, who was still on the floor. Batman kicked one of Tweedleedum's legs out from under him, which sent him sprawling to the floor once more.

'Damn it, this is taking too much time!' Batman thought. 'Tetch is already gone with the girl!'

As he got back up, Batman glanced over at Robin, and was pleased to see that he had grabbed the bat from Tweedleedee and rammed the handle end into the stomach of the bigger man, causing him to double over in pain.

"Go," he called to Batman. "I got this."

Batman warily stared at Tweedleedum, who now rose to his feet once more. "You sure?"

"I _got_ this," Robin assured him in his best confident manner, just as he delivered a staggering kick to the head of Tweedleedee, who collapsed to the floor. "Go get the girl."

Batman didn't have to be told again. He ran as fast as he could towards the only door where Tetch could have made his escape. In the few seconds it took him to run to the door, Batman took note of the cheery décor, influenced by Alice In Wonderland, along with the high end computers in the well-stocked lab.

'Tetch's rolling in cash,' he realized. 'But did he steal it, or was it given to him? He kept mentioning a Red Queen before, could that be his patron?'

Batman reached the door and flung it open. It led to an alleyway between the warehouses. There was only one way out, headed towards the river.

When Batman came out of the alley, he saw Tetch was pulling/pushing the still-struggling girl along side of him. The little man appeared to be growing tired.

Batman smirked as he ran after them. The girl's constant struggling, despite being bound, had actually slow Tetch down.

When he glanced over his shoulder and saw the Dark Knight heading straight for him, Tetch pulled the still-bound girl over to the edge of the pier and then shoved her into the water.

He then grandly swept his arms out and said, "Hurry up and decide, if you please; shall you save the girl, or try and catch…AHHHH!"

Batman deliberately collided with the Mad Hatter as he dove into the water after the girl, taking a very surprised Jervis Tetch into the drink with him. Thus the Dark Knight was then able to capture both the Mad Hatter while saving the girl at the same time. Batman let Tetch flail helplessly in the water while he got hold of the girl, who was unable to swim, thanks to the bonds restricting her arms. It was only after he got the girl safely back on the dock, with her arms cut loose, that Batman finally pulled Tetch out of the water.

Tetch was still coughing up water when Batman hauled him up. "You were saying?" Batman sarcastically asked.

"Mighty irked the Red Queen shall be," Tetch said in a horse voice, "once she finds out what you've done to me!"

"Who is she?" Batman demanded. "Who is this Red Queen?"

Yet when Tetch just cast his eyes downward in a scared manner, Batman abruptly realized that the Mad Hatter was more afraid of the Red Queen than he was of him.

'It can wait,' he thought. Right now, there were more important matters to attend to, such as a warehouse filled with children.

Robin came outside just then. "I put the glimmer twins to sleep," he said. He gazed with concern at Batman's wet Batsuit. "You ok?"

"Just went swimming with the Mad Hatter," Batman replied.

"Looks like the Hatter attached the hats to everybody with super glue, or something like it," Robin said with disgust. "I can't remove them."

"You're just a real prince," Batman snarled at Tetch, "aren't you?"

"T-T-The R-ed Queen w-will…." An extremely nervous Tetch began to say.

"TO HELL WITH THE RED QUEEN!" Batman roared at him. "If you don't get these damned hats off of those kids safely, you will have to deal with _me_!"

Batman placed Tetch back on the ground and shoved him towards Robin. "Get him back inside and make him get those hats off of those people."

"Right," Robin said, as he grabbed Tetch by the back of his collar and pulled him back inside the warehouse.

Batman turned to the girl, who stood shivering in her Alice In Wonderland dress, and held out his hand. "It's ok," he said tenderly. "You can come with me…."

The girl suddenly ran up to him and gave him a huge hug. Batman, taken aback, stood there while her arms were tightly wrapped around his waist.

"I _so _wanted to meet you!" she said, babbling. "I read all about your exploits since…well, since I learned to read! And so when my mom threw me out of the house because her new boyfriend was coming onto me, I came here, to Gotham City, just to meet you! But I didn't think our meeting would be like this! I mean, you gotta admit, this was kinda weird…is Gotham City always this weird?"

Batman, deeply touched at the girl's story, gently pried her from him, then bent down and asked, "What's your name?"

"Kelsey McGinnis," the girl replied. "Can I go with you? You know, when you go back home?"

"Let's get inside for now, where it's warm, Kelsey," Batman said. He took her by the hand and led her into the warehouse. "I can't help but notice that you're the only one of these kids who's not wearing a hat."

"It wouldn't work on me!" Kelsey told him. "At least, that was what the Hatter kept shouting. He was really angry about it, too. He didn't want to accept me, but the guys forced him."

'The Hatter finally came across someone who was immune to his mind control tech!' Batman thought, amazed, as he gazed over the scene. Tweedleedum and Tweedleedee were both sprawled out, face down, on the floor, looking like a pair of puppets whose strings had abruptly been cut. The other children still sat at the table, eerily quiet, and not moving one inch. They appeared to be living mannequins.

He turned to Kelsey. "Who were these 'guys' you mentioned? You said the Hatter didn't want to accept you, but they forced him?"

"The same guys who abducted me from the train station, the ones who were grabbing kids for him."

Robin, who had successfully coerced Tetch into finding a solvent that would safely remove the hats from everyone, grabbed the little man by the collar before he could begin applying it. "Wait, you had more help? Where are they?"

"Work for the Red Queen, those two," Tetch said, angrily. "When I rejected Kelsey, they said, 'make do!'"

That was when it all clicked for Batman. They had never heard from the Mad Hatter until now because he hadn't been pulling any jobs here in Gotham. There was no need for him to do so, since this Red Queen was bank rolling everything for him, even supplying children for him to experiment his mind control on. The Mad Hatter's mind control tech would be very valuable to somebody with an unsavory agenda.

Batman wanted nothing more than to take Tetch up to the roof right now and "persuade" him to reveal the true name of this Red Queen. But there were all of these children to deal with, first. And in order to best help these kids, he needed to make a call.

He switched on the Batsuit's phone by pressing a hidden button on his left gauntlet. When the call went through, Olivia's voice said, "Yeah, what's up?"

"Sis," Batman said, "I need your help."

**B&B**

"Ok, so, do you have any further questions?" Rachel asked.

Barbara Gordon shrugged as she glanced at her father. "Not really. I think everything's been covered."

"If you even have a question that may seem silly, don't hesitate to ask," James Gordon told her. "That's what we're here for, to get all of your questions answered."

There was a momentary silence in Rachel's office as Barbara somberly considered what her father had said. "Well, the big question right now would be, how long will it be before we finally get to court?"

"Braddock's attorney has called for another postponement," Rachel replied. "That's what the hearing is set for tomorrow. But I have no doubt that Judge Reynolds will deny any further delay and get the case rolling as soon as possible. My best guess is that we'll be in court just after the holidays, soon after the first of the year."

"That's still pretty fast," Jim told his daughter.

Barbara smiled. "That's good enough for me."

"You ready to face your abductors in court?" Jim asked her.

"I was born ready," Barbara replied with a grin.

"That's my girl," Jim said, as he scooped her up in a one-armed hug and kissed the side of her face. "She's a tough little cookie, my Babs!"

'Oh, Jim, if only you had any idea just how tough she truly is,' Rachel thought, as she gazed at Barbara, now safe in the embrace of her father. As Batgirl, this young woman had fought beside none other than the Batman countless times now, always risking everything just to help others.

This was why Rachel was very happy to be personally prosecuting Braddock, along with the other men who had kept Barbara prisoner at the Man Bat facility. In a way, Rachel saw this as a small way for her to somehow pay Barbara back for the thankless task she took upon whenever she suited up as Batgirl and hit the streets.

"Ok, then…." Rachel started to say.

But Jim was interrupted by his cell. "Excuse me, got a text," Jim muttered, as he regarded his cell phone with a wary eye. "Olivia has just moved the entire SVU task force to the docks."

"Did they catch the Gotham Slasher?" Rachel asked hopefully.

Jim shook his head. "Liv got a call from our Mutual Friend. The Mad Hatter has just been caught. There are about a dozen kidnapped children on hand who need help."

'Oh, way to go, Bruce!' Rachel thought, as she and Barbara both shared an excited look.

"I _was_ going to drive you to Wayne Manor tonight," Jim said to Barbara. "But now I really need to get over to there….."

"It's ok, Dad!" Barbara said eagerly. "I can go to Wayne Manor with Rachel!"

Jim just chuckled at that. "Would be nice to ask, first, darling. Try not to be very presumptuous."

"Oh, Gawd," Barbara said, as she gave Rachel a sheepish look. "Sorry!"

"It's fine, she can come back with me," Rachel said, smiling. They had already made plans for Barbara to spend the weekend at the Manor. Olivia and Alex were going to arrive later, as well. This would be the first time Barbara would be back with them at Wayne Manor since her abduction. "You go, Jim. Keep me updated?"

"Always," Jim said, as he kissed his daughter farewell. "You behave yourself!"

Barbara gave him a salute as he left. "Always!"

As she saw him to the door of her office, Rachel noted her staff in the outer office were all crowded around the TV set. Rachel was about to ask what was happening on TV that had her whole staff enraptured. But the phone in her office rang. Her secretary, Shelia, tore herself away from the TV long enough to answer the call at her desk. Then she glanced up at Rachel and said, "It's Walter Piedmont, Ma'am. He says he needs to speak with you urgently."

Captain Walter Piedmont was in command of the Holding Jail here in Gotham City "I'll take it in my office. What are you all watching out here?"

"It's a newscast from Metropolis," Randy Owens, one of her ADAs, replied. "Superman's battling someone…or something."

'So what else is new?' Rachel wearily thought. Metropolis had just barely gotten over the last major battle, when Magneto and his Brotherhood of Mutants had trashed the place. 'Jeez, can't Superman, as well as Metropolis, get a break from the latest super-powered madman storming into town?'

Barbara, being the smart kid that she was, had found the same newscast on the TV that Rachel had in her office. She sat watching it intently while Rachel answered the phone at her desk. "Walter? Hi, what's up?"

"They're all gone, Ms. Dawes," Captain Piedmont said in his gruff voice. He sounded very angry. "The whole lot of them have just been swept out of here by the damned feds!"

"Whoa, wait, who are you talking about?" Rachel asked. "Who have been removed?"

"Braddock, and his whole goon squad that Batman captured from the Man Bat facility," Piedmont said, clearly livid. "Damned feds just strolled in here, flashed their warrants, and took them. The lead fed wouldn't even let me make a call to you until well after they were gone!"

"Oh, good God," Rachel said with disgust. "Let me guess, these feds, they were from the OHMR?"

"No, they were Federal Marshals."

"Regular feds?" Rachel said, surprised. She had expected this to be one of Amanda Waller's ploys. "What did they tell you?"

"That the Man Bat gang were wanted on a federal case, one that superseded the Gotham City case," he replied. "When I asked what case it was, they just said it involved Homeland Security."

"What the hell?" Rachel muttered. She glanced up to see Shelia was at her door. "Hold on, Walter. Yes, Shelia?"

"The Attorney General's office is on line one," her secretary said.

"Did Bob say what he wanted?"

Shelia slowly shook her head. "Not the State Attorney General, Rachel, it's _the _Attorney General, the one in Washington."

After quickly bidding Walter farewell, Rachel picked up the phone and found herself speaking to the top cop in the United States. It was a pleasant, and brief conversation, but when she hung up, Rachel felt lower than a slug.

The Attorney General had informed her that the men involved in the Man Bat incident would now be tried in federal court, and that it would be best for all concerned if Gotham City had dropped its own case against them. That last sentence, although stated in the politest of terms, was actually a veiled order.

'A veiled order that can easily become a threat if I try to fight this,' Rachel thought despondently. When she glanced over at Barbara, she felt even worse. 'Oh, God, how am I going to tell her?'

Barbara gazed at the TV with a mixture of fascination and fear. Rachel went over to her and sat down beside her on the sofa. "I have some bad news for you, Barbara…."

"What is it?" Barbara asked, mesmerized by what was happening on the TV.

"Your court case has been postponed, possibly indefinitely. Braddock, and the other men who kept you captive, they've all been removed from the Gotham City Holding Jail by the feds."

Barbara glanced at her with a stunned look. "Is it Waller?"

"It wasn't the OHMR who took them out, but it may still be Waller who's behind this. Rest assured, I will look into this, and find out exactly what the hell is going on."

"Ok," Barbara said, stilled entranced by what was happening in Metropolis.

Rachel finally glanced at the TV, wondering what was so incredible that it completely held Barbara's attention like this. All she saw were some still pictures of what looked like a large stone statue with spikes coming out of its head and shoulders. "What's going on?"

"Superman's fighting some kind of a monster," Barbara said. She sounded terrified.

"I'm sure it will be all right. This is Superman we're talking about. He takes down guys like this in his sleep."

"This is no normal guy," Barbara said, her frightened voice a whisper. She gestured at the screen. "He's not even human, and he's just as powerful as Superman, if not more so."

Rachel realized with a shock that the still image on TV that she thought was of a statue was actually the monster that Superman was fighting. 'Good God in heaven,' she thought, as a chill ran through her body. 'That thing is huge!'

"He's been fighting Superman to a standstill. The news was covering the battle live, but they lost the image."

Rachel grabbed Barbara's hand and squeezed it. "It will be all right, Barbara. It will all work out."

Yet Barbara did not look convinced. "I don't know, Rachel. I've got the sinking feeling that it's only going to get much worse from this point on, for all of us."

Taking another look at the monstrous features of the unnatural entity that presently battled Superman, an anxious Rachel had to admit that Barbara might well have a valid point.

**B&B**

Olivia left J'onn behind to help the uniforms case the neighborhood for the Gotham Slasher, while she moved her entire task force over to the warehouse where Batman told her the children were located. She ordered the massive main doors to be opened, so that the ambulances, which arrived at the same time the SVU did, could just pull right in and gain easy access to the children.

As she walked amongst the kidnapped children, who were currently being attended to by a horde of EMS workers, Olivia was pleased to see that spirits among the kids were all very high. She suspected that that had a lot to do with the fact that they had all just met Batman and Robin, who had stayed with them right up until Olivia and the others had arrived.

Mike and Andrea, both armed with clipboards, went around to each child and took their names and addresses. As she silently watched them take this information, Olivia realized that all of the children weren't from Gotham City, and many of them were from out of state.

'That's why this many missing kids didn't immediately set off our radar,' she realized. 'They're not from Gotham City. They were all brought here to play in The Mad Hatter's sick little games.'

Olivia then gave Jarvis Tetch a hateful look. He was in the back of an ambulance, his hands cuffed and under the watchful eye of two uniformed officers. Tetch, who was bundled up in a blanket, looked to be in a daze as he just muttered something about a Red Queen under his breath.

'You sick bastard,' Olivia thought, as she glared at the man. It appeared as if he was playing at being unwell just to avoid answering any hard questions. 'You think it's rough now, just wait….'

When she heard crying, Olivia glanced over to see a little boy, who looked to be about three years of age. He was the youngest of the victims. The harried EMS workers looked too busy to offer him comfort, and the scared little guy had just burst into tears. "I want my mommy!" he cried.

"Inspector?" Katie urgently called from across the warehouse.

"Um, yeah, just a sec, Katie!" Olivia called. She stared awkwardly at the little boy, wanting nothing more than to just hug the poor little guy. But there was so much to do, so much to oversee here at the Mad Hatter crime scene. She was a very busy woman who was being pulled in a hundred directions.

'To hell with it,' Olivia suddenly thought, as she scooped the boy up in her arms. He welcomed Olivia's hug by tightly hugging her neck. 'The day I'm too busy to give comfort to a child is the day I frigging quit this job!'

"Is it ok if I just hold him for a while?" Olivia asked the EMS worker.

The harried young woman, who was busy checking out the other children who had been captives of the Mad Hatter, looked to be more than happy to have one crying kid taken off of her hands. "Be my guest, Inspector."

"C'mon, let's go see what Katie wants, ok?" Olivia asked the little boy. She produced a clean tissue and used it to wipe the tears from his eyes.

"Ok," he said warily, still sniffling. He appeared to have forgotten his predicament and was genuinely interested in what Katie had to say.

Not having any time to change from her Gotham Slasher stakeout, Katie was stilled decked out in her scant hooker outfit, although she now wore a sweatshirt with the letters GCPD emblazoned across the chest. But the tight skirt, along with the high heels that Katie had jokingly called her 'stripper shoes' still left little to the imagination. Yet Katie still acted one hundred percent cop, despite the way she was dressed. "The uniforms searched the rest of the warehouse, as well as the two adjacent ones, Inspector," she reported. "They're clean. Looks like the Mad Hatter was only using this one."

"Was he renting it? Or was he just squatting here?" Olivia asked. "Has he said anything else, yet?"

Katie shook her head. "No, he's still babbling incessantly about this Red Queen, and how angry she'll be about all this."

Olivia glanced around at their well lived-in surroundings, which indicated the Mad Hatter had been here for quite some time. "If he was just squatting, the security guards would have noticed him."

"And it looks like he's been here a long time," Katie noted.

"So he _was_ renting the place," Olivia deduced. "But I doubt it was under his real name, Jarvis Tetch, or his Mad Hatter handle. Look into it, would you? He also keeps talking about this Red Queen broad."

"You think she could be a real person?"

"It's possible. Maybe she's the Mad Hatter's sugar daddy…or sugar mommy, whatever the case. The point is, if he had somebody helping him, I want to know who the hell it was."

Katie nodded. "Got it, Inspector." She smiled and waved broadly at the little boy in Olivia's arms. "Woo-woo, you little cutie!"

That made him smile, which pleased Olivia to no end.

The boy abruptly pointed at something and said, "What's he watching?"

Olivia turned to see a male officer standing there engrossed in his cell phone. He was intently watching something on the screen.

"Oh, I'm sorry, are you missing your favorite TV show?" Olivia asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

The young officer, whose name tag read Garrity, turned beet red when he saw who had addressed him. He quickly shut the phone down as he gave her a weak smile. "Sorry, Inspector!"

"If your job is interfering with your TV time, just let me know," Olivia angrily told him, "and I'll arrange it so you can be at home with your favorite shows, day and night."

"Yes, ma'am…uh, no ma'am," the officer sputtered. "It's just that something really big is going down in Metropolis right now, and…."

"Yeah? Well, this is Gotham City, and we've got problems of our own right now. So stay focused on your job!"

He looked shaky as he quickly nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

"WHAAAAA!"

Everyone at the crime scene, children, EMS workers and police alike, all turned and stared at Alex, who uneasily stood trying to look casual (and failing miserably) by a pile of boxes over by the far wall. Her face red with embarrassment, she just heartily waved at everyone and said, "It's ok! I'm fine!"

"What the hell just happened?" a stunned Olivia called over to her.

"I, um, just saw a bat," Alex replied. "A really big, gigantic bat…."

"Well, stay away from it," Olivia said, as she just shook her head. 'Jeez, on top of running a major crime scene while carrying a kid around in my arms, now my girlfriend decides to freak out while playing Nancy frigging Drew!'

Olivia then stopped short when something occurred to her. It was something that Alex had just said. She turned back to Alex and asked, "Wait, you saw a really big bat?"

When Alex just nodded her head in a knowing manner, Olivia realized she had to get over there, right now. Once she arrived, Alex, who looked paler than usual, just muttered: "I'll leave you and the Bat alone."

She handed the little boy to Alex. "Here, take him. I don't want the 'bat' to scare him."

"And who are you, you little cutie?" Alex said in a pleasingly silly manner, as she held the little boy close. "Huh? What's your name?"

"Jonah," the boy replied with a smile.

"Jonah! What a nice name!"

'Nothing like an adorable kid to make otherwise perfectly rational adults act like idiots,' Olivia thought with a smile.

Olivia saw the Dark Knight stood in the shadows just behind the boxes. His Batsuit blended in so well that she could barely see him, save for the pair of cold eyes that glared balefully out at her.

"Got your message," she said, sotto voce. "What's up?"

"Kelsey McGinnis, the girl dressed up as Alice, watch her carefully," the Batman whispered from the shadows. "The Mad Hatter was unable to electronically enslave her."

"She fought back?"

"She was completely immune to his mind control technology. She told me that she had been abducted and brought here for the Mad Hatter, by a team of men who kidnapped children for him."

"Oh, Christ, as if we don't already have our hands full with the Gotham Slasher," Olivia muttered. "Speaking of whom, we met him earlier. He's a meta."

Batman's head reared back in surprise. "Really? What's his power?"

"Super strength and speed," Olivia answered. "He shook off a full-bore assault by J'onn like it was nothing. I've left J'onn back there with the uniforms, and they've sealed off the area within a four block radius. Jim Gordon is with them, now."

Batman shook his head. "If the Gotham Slasher is a meta, then he's long gone by now. Interesting…he has superpowers, yet he's killed his three previous victims with a knife. Why not just use his powers to kill them?"

"Maybe he's trying to avoid attracting attention from Waller and her OHMR goons?" Olivia suggested. "Speaking of whom, once word of this gets out, Waller will be breathing down our necks. I mean, Jim has ordered a media blackout on the Gotham Slasher case, but…."

"The GCPD is the same size as a small army, Sis. And Waller has spies everywhere. No way can you keep a lid on something like this. You should expect to be hearing from her very soon."

"At least you put a stop to the Mad Hatter tonight. That's one big victory for us."

"A partial victory," Batman corrected her. "There's still also the matter of the Red Queen. Whoever she is, I believe she's bankrolling Tetch."

"Who would actually pay Tetch to play his sick little Alice In Wonderland games? And why?"

"He could be being paid to do further research into his mind control technology," Batman suggested. "As to who it might be, there's a prime suspect I have in mind."

"Waller?" Olivia said with a nod.

"She's been very outspoken against pursuing and locking up children, and public inspections into her meta prison back up her words; there're no signs that she's been keeping children imprisoned. So on the surface, this doesn't look like her tactics."

"Hardcastle said the same exact thing publicly, at first. Remember?" Olivia pointed out. "And the fact remains that someone's still hunting down entire meta families across the country. You've heard Alex's own accounts from the metas that she's helped to…." She saw Batman had abruptly glanced down at the floor as he placed a hand over his right ear. "What is it?"

"I have to leave, now. Try and make Tetch talk, find out who is this Red Queen. Whether it's Waller or not, we still need to know her real identity."

Olivia nodded as she glanced confidently at her SVU crew. "Don't worry. That little pervert will be babbling like a brook once my guys work him over in the interrogation room. By the way, thanks so much for…."

When she glanced back at him, the Batman was gone.

"Oh, yeah, of course," Olivia muttered. "I should have known…."

As she walked back into the middle of the crime scene, Olivia saw two boys, about seven and eight, walk up to Mike. The older boy pointed at Katie, who stood speaking on her cell, and asked, "Is she a hooker?"

"She ain't no ordinary hooker, kid," Mike said. "That's Superhooker!"

In response to this, Andrea promptly reached over and slapped him on the arm, which made Mike flinch. "Ow! What the hell, Drea?"

"You know why!" she snapped at him. "Shame on you!"

The boys now looked thoroughly impressed as they both regarded Katie with renewed admiration.

An annoyed Katie, who overheard everything, just covered her cell with her hand and said, "Could we knock it off with the hooker jokes, please?"

"You should have changed," J'onn chided her. He strolled into the warehouse with a displeased look on his face. When he saw Olivia, he shook his head dejectedly. "Commissioner Gordon called off the search; we couldn't find him."

"Hopefully we've stopped him from hunting tonight," Olivia said. "And our hunt for him will continue…."

Katie covered her free ear as she spoke into the cell. "Yeah, I'm still here. You were saying? Yeah, ok, hold on. Inspector?"

"Yeah?"

"This warehouse was paid for in cash in person by a 'Mr. John Smith' for the entire year, starting last January."

"Real imaginative alias," Olivia commented blandly. "Do we have a picture of who paid the bill on their office surveillance?"

"We've just been over to the main office," Alex said. She still held little Jonah in one arm while she held something in a plastic evidence bag in her other hand as she walked over to them. "And they erase the surveillance footage after six months." She held up a book that had been sealed in a clear evidence bag. "But he still had to sign for it, and we have his signature."

"And hopefully a print," Olivia said with a nod. "Way to go, Alex…and Jonah!"

The crime scene began to wrap up when the ambulances pulled out, loaded with kids. A sleeping Jonah was placed aboard one of the ambulances, under the watchful eye of one of the uniformed police officers, a woman, who traveled to the hospital with him and a couple other kids.

Olivia turned to see Alex standing there, staring intently at her iPhone. "What could be so important that you have to watch it right now?" an annoyed Olivia asked her.

But Alex's face looked grave. "I know you chewed out a cop for watching this, but…Jesus, Liv, have you _seen_ what's going on in Metropolis? It's looking really bad. Half the city is in ruins!"

"So Metropolis is in trouble again?" Olivia casually asked. " Big deal! Don't worry Alex, Superman will…"

"No, it's Superman who's the one in serious trouble, Liv," Alex anxiously said. "Believe me, it's really bad!"

"Oh, jeez," Olivia said, stunned, as she leaned in for a better look at the screen on Alex's phone. "Ok, just what the hell _is_ going on over there, anyway?"

**B&B**

The moment Amanda Waller strode into the crisis center of the OHMR headquarters in Metropolis, she said, "What do we have? Report!"

"A knock-down, drag-out fight between Superman and…something," Deidre Clevenger said. She sat at the main desk, beside Amanda's chair.

Amanda briefly smiled at how respectful Deidre always was; while she took over the main desk of the crisis center when Amanda was away, she never actually sat in Amanda's chair.

"Something?" Amanda asked. "A person? A thing? What?"

"All we know is that a boom tube opened over the city at 23:20 hours and Superman and this 'thing' emerged from it. No sooner did they emerge then they started fighting, savagely." She gestured at the banks of monitors before them. "Look at the screens."

Just the mere mention of boom tubes sent a chill down Amanda's spine. It was the common term for an inter-dimensional wormhole that was used by the peoples of the technically advanced society of New Genesis. But boom tubes were also used by the peoples of their mortal enemy, Apokolips**,** which was ruled by the fearsome Darkseid.

As Amanda stared in horror at the damage to Metropolis, which involved shattered skyscrapers blazing in the night sky like high rise bonfires, she anxiously wondered if Darkseid had begun yet another dreaded assault on earth, once again using Metropolis as his beachhead.

'But he can't attack us,' she realized, 'New Genesis has sworn to protect us! Any assault on earth by Darkseid will essentially provoke an all-out war between him and the New Gods.'

Amanda grew annoyed at the static shots of burning buildings, so she glanced down at the computer screens at her desk, only to see with frustration that they were blank. "What's going on? Why don't we have any Intel on this battle?"

"There's nothing to report, yet, because it just started within the last half hour," Deidre said. "And it started so abruptly, with no warning, that it caught everybody off guard."

"We're getting a lot of major damage reports coming in," Cyril spoke up from his desk. He shook his head. "And this so soon after what we went through with Magneto!"

"Do we have a live feed of the battle itself?" Amanda asked. "All I'm seeing here are static shots of the streets."

"The building damage you see are taken from surveillance cameras on the streets," Deidre said. "There was a TV crew shooting the fight from a chopper. But they got hit by the monster. They were all killed."

"Just what this city needs, to be torn up by a pair if metas once again," Amanda angrily said. "We need to find out what's happening, so we can plan the appropriate response!"

"We have the unmanned surveillance drones," Deidre suggested.

Cyril shot her an angry glare. "You know full well that it's illegal for us to use them within U.S. boarders."

"Launch one of them," Amanda ordered, cutting him off. When Cyril turned his glare to her, she added, "Or would you prefer that I order you and your team to head into the battle zone to collect intelligence for me? No, Captain? Yeah, I didn't think so."

"Drone launched," Deidre reported, after pressing a button.

Cyril stared at her with renewed shock. "I wasn't aware that we had one of these things already loaded up and ready for action."

The fact of the matter was, Amanda always had a drone ready to fly at a moment's notice, despite the ban on using them within the United States. She'd figured they would need it during a crisis situation, and this was certainly turning out to be a crisis.

The live video footage came on the main screen once the drone was aloft. Amanda could make out the familiar streets of Metropolis below as the drone made its way to the battle. It didn't have to go very far. The wrecked and burning vehicles in the streets were the first indication that the drone had arrived. Then Amanda saw the Metropolis police in riot gear, all huddled around their cars.

And then she saw them.

Superman had just delivered a staggering blow to a grayish-white creature that was clearly three times his size and heft. As Deidre switched the drone into hover mode, it gave Amanda a better view of the battle, as well as a good look at this unknown monster.

'Dear Lord in heaven,' Amanda thought with horror, as she gazed at the beastly creature. Its densely muscled body was covered with what looked like armor plating that was made from some sort of crystal that grew right out of its skin. The creature simply shook off the jaw breaking punch that Superman gave it and punched the Man Of Steel right back. The blow from the monster was so great that it sent Superman careening straight through a concrete wall as if it were made of paper.

"That's not Darkseid, is it?" Deidre asked.

"No," Amanda replied. "But I want to know who and what that is. Do we have a name, yet?"

"The monster's not very chatty," Cyril replied. "But the local news stations have been all calling him something that we can use."

"What is it?" Amanda asked.

"Doomsday."

Amanda's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "A little hyperbolic, maybe, but good enough. Let's use it."

"Given the damage he's done, and the fact that he's giving Superman a major run for his money," Deidre said, "I'd say Doomsday was the perfect choice for a name."

Amanda glanced back at the footage showing a weary Superman staggering out from the ruins of the brick wall he had just been slammed into, and she wondered, not without some hope, if this was the moment when the Man Of Steel would finally be put down for good.

**B&B**

Bane knew that Deles had to have known that something went wrong in the lab, because Enrique's cell phone had gone off, and when Bane retrieved it from the dead man, he saw the call was from Deles.

And so when Bane made his assault on Deles' bedroom suite, he didn't come through the front door. Instead, he climbed on the outside wall of the mansion and jumped into the suite straight through the sliding glass doors on the patio.

Deles let out a screech, sounding oddly like a cat, when he saw Bane come charging in through the shattered glass doors. The man tried to reach for a weapon in the end table, but Bane stopped him with a single karate chop to the back of his neck. Deles collapsed to the floor in a heap, still alive. Bane didn't want to kill him.

Not yet.

As expected, the armed men who stood guard outside Deles' door all came rushing in. And Bane was waiting for them. He easily killed the first man with a single blow to the head, which snapped his neck. Then Bane picked up the body and tossed it at the other two men, knocking them to the floor. He killed the remaining two men just as effortlessly by ripping out both of their throats with his bare hands at the same time.

Bane flexed his muscles, feeling the adrenaline coursing through his body like a live wire. Having just been recently injected with a fresh supply of the Venom, he never felt more powerful, more fierce, more _alive_ than he did right now.

When he heard moaning behind him, Bane smiled under his mask. 'Deles is awake. Good. Very good.'

Deles was kneeling on the floor, holding the back of his neck in pain when Bane strode up to him. Bane hauled the fearful man up by the collar of his pajamas.

"W-Whatever you want," Deles cried out in a panic, "I give to you! Anything at all! Just name it, and it's yours, mi amigo!"

Bane just slowly shook his head at the man, who had wet himself. Despite the tough reputation that Deles had always sought to create, in the end, here he was, begging for his life, just like every other one of these spineless bastards.

Choosing not to dignify Deles' cowardice with a verbal response, Bane quickly brought the matter to a close. He plunged his hand into Deles' chest. Deles' eyes went wide as his rib cage was smashed inwards, and then he stared dumbly upwards as Bane ripped out his heart. He died instantly.

Bane threw the corpse up against the wall, where it fell to the floor and lay there like a discarded doll. Still holding Deles' heart in his hand, Bane strode out of the bedroom suite and down the hall, where he had left Deanna and Varlis.

"Is it done?" Deanna said hopefully. "Is he dead?"

Bane replied by holding out Deles' still-warm heart for them to see. Then he let it fall to the floor, where it made a wet, slapping sound.

"And now, Mr. Varlis," Bane said, "let us go to Gotham City and kill the Batman."

**To be continued...**


	3. Chapter 3

_My thanks to stargaze29 for the review. I'd also like to thank those of you __who have favored either me, or this story._

**Batman & Benson 8**

**Chapter Three**

Kal-El arose from the rubble of what used to be a pawn store. He had crashed through the wall, collapsing the building down around him, when this monster, whom the local media had dubbed Doomsday, had flung him through it.

The brute now glared at him from across the street, its skin slick from the rain of water that spewed from a knocked-over fire hydrant. It made a threatening gesture towards Kal-El that let the Last Son Of Krypton know that this fight was far from over.

Kal-El felt exhausted, weary and…for the first time in a long while, he hurt. Blood trickled down the side of his face from a gash that Doomsday had inflicted upon him, and he felt dizzy and unsteady on his feet.

But Kal-El knew that there was no time for him to rest, for this monster, the nightmare that plagued Apokolips was now here, in Metropolis. He gazed back at the very creature who had brought none other than Darkseid himself to his knees, and realized that he had to end this, right here and now.

'For Lois, Lana, Jimmy, Chloe, and everybody else who lives in Metropolis,' Kal-El solemnly thought. 'I have to stop him, now!'

With that, the man known to the world as Superman took flight against the monster known as Doomsday.

And when they collided, every window within a two block radius shattered.

**B&B**

"Good evening, Miss Rachel."

As she entered the main foyer of Wayne Manor, Rachel smiled when she saw Alfred's face suddenly light up at the sight of Barbara, who had just walked in with her.

"Miss Barbara, how good it is to see you again!" Alfred said with sincere delight, as he hugged the girl.

"It's great seeing you, again, Alfred," Barbra replied, as she gave him a peck on the cheek. "It's been too long."

"Babs is back in Wayne Manor," Rachel said, smiling. "All is right with the world once more."

"Indeed it is," Alfred said. "Let me get you some chocolate chip cookies!"

"Ugh, isn't it a little late for a snack?" Rachel asked, making a face.

"It's never too late for Alfred's chocolate chip cookies," Barbara chided her.

As they followed Alfred to the kitchen, Rachel was momentarily startled by a menacing shadow in an alcove. She warily approached it, and the shadow seemingly changed shape.

'Clayface!' Rachel thought, as she backed away in a white-hot panic. 'Clayface is back!'

But it turned out to be nothing more than a Grecian statute that was on display against the wall.

"Hey…whoa!" Barbara said, as she stopped short. She gazed at Rachel with concern. "Are you all right?"

"Uh…yeah, I'm fine," Rachel replied. She regarded Barbara and Alfred, who both stared at her with worry etched on their faces, with an uneasy smile. "Um, did Bruce and Dick get back, yet?"

"Yes, they're in the Batcave, monitoring the unfortunate situation in Metropolis," Alfred answered. "Why don't you two go join them, I shall bring the cookies down to you."

Rachel was unusually silent as she and Barbara went to the Batcave. She reflected on the increasing level of paranoia she seemed to be suffering, where Rachel imaged she saw the dead Clayface attacking her everywhere she went. But as they rode the elevator down to the main level, Rachel's worries about her mental health were abated when Barbara took Rachel's hand and squeezed it.

"Are you sure you're all right?" Barbara asked. "You're as white as a ghost."

"I thought I _saw_ a ghost in that alcove just now," Rachel said with a shake of her head. "Could have sworn I saw Clayface. But it's nothing. It's just been a long day."

When they emerged into the Batcave proper, Rachel was stunned to see Bruce and Dick, both still fully suited up as Batman and Robin, headed up the steps to the Prowler hanger. "You just came back and now you're going out again?!" Rachel said.

Batman paused at the top of the steps and stared back down at her. "We're headed for Metropolis."

Rachel felt a stab of fear within her at the thought of them heading into that super powered battleground. The monster that Superman clashed with all night had easily fought the Man Of Steel to a standstill.

"To do what?" Rachel asked plaintively.

"Whatever we can," Batman tersely replied.

"Do you need me?" Barbara called out.

"Man the Batcomputer for us, Oracle," Batman told her. "Keep watch over the whole situation and alert us of any new developments."

He then left.

"That wasn't what I meant," Barbara said despondently "But I'll take what I can get…."

Rachel took one look at the horrors in Metropolis that were on display on the central screen of the Batcomputer; of the scenes of citizens fleeing the total devastation, looking for all the world like refugees from a war-torn country, and she then abruptly pulled a surprised Barbara into a tight hug and said, "I, for one, am glad you're here, safe and sound."

**B&B**

Olivia prowled the hallways of the Mercy General ER like a protective lioness. She was busy working her cell phone, and when she wasn't on her cell, she was busy coordinating with various doctors, police and social workers who ran up to her. The majority of the children who had been kidnapped by the Mad Hatter had already located found their parents, and Olivia was tirelessly working to make sure the rest of the kids got reunited with their families before dawn.

'Damn, dawn's not that far away, now,' Olivia thought, when she glanced at her watch. She strolled past the waiting room, and stopped dead when she heard a raucous, collective scream of horror from a group of people.

She ran over to the doorway, with her hand hovering over her holstered Glock, thinking somebody was being assaulted.

Yet she saw a group of people all huddled in front of the TV set. In addition to visitors, many of the people who breathlessly watched the TV were orderlies, maintenance staff, and a couple of nurses. Olivia knew what they were watching before she saw it for herself. But once she actually saw what was happening live in Metropolis, she let out a gasp and whispered, "Sweet Jesus…."

Superman lay in a bloody heap on a street that looked like a scene from a disaster movie. The monster he'd been battling, Doomsday, raised the unconscious Superman up by his cape and let out a victorious roar.

"Is he dead? Is he dead?" a horrified woman in a business suit kept asking over and over.

"If Superman is dead," a man fearfully said, "then does that mean that thing is gonna come here?!"

"Not if Batman has anything to say about it," a young Hispanic boy confidently replied.

Olivia was horrified at the very thought of Bruce having to face this fearsome creature, who had just defeated the Man Of Steel.

When she sensed a presence directly behind her, Olivia turned to see J'onn. "I must go," he said with quiet urgency. "Now."

Olivia glanced back at the TV, at the horrific battleground that Metropolis had become, with a possibly dead Superman lying right in the middle of it, and she wanted nothing more then to tell him no. She had this crazy urge to grab J'onn, along with Alex and Katie and everybody she knew, and take them all to the Batcave, where they would just snuggle up and ride out this latest terrible storm together in comfort and safety.

But, instead of doing that, Olivia just said, "All right. I'll tell Katie."

J'onn nodded his thanks. Then he turned and walked briskly away.

Olivia had wanted to at least tell him to be careful, but stopped herself. It sounded like a really silly thing to say to a super powered being like J'onn. But then she got another look at the prone Superman, who now lay facedown in the street, and realized that wishing J'onn to be careful wasn't really very silly at all.

"Olivia?"

She turned to see Jim Gordon had strode up to her. "Go home, Liv," he said. "I'll take over from here. Get some rest. You look exhausted. You can pick it up again in the morning."

As much as she didn't want to leave these kids, Olivia realized they were now all in very good hands. And she was extremely tired. But there was still something she needed to oversee before calling it a night. "Actually, Alex is back at the SVU right now, overseeing the interrogation of Tetch."

"Has he said anything that can help us?"

Olivia shook her head dismally. "Not when he was with me. He kept babbling about somebody he refers to as the Red Queen."

Gordon's brow creased in thought. "That's from Alice In Wonderland, isn't it? I remember it back from when I used to watch the movie with Barbara."

"Yes, sir, the Red Queen is basically the villain of the story. But we don't know if 'Red Queen' is her actual name, or just what Tetch refers to her as. In point of fact, sir, we really don't know much from Tetch…only that he's really scared of her, whoever she is."

"Let's just hope this isn't yet another super villain," Gordon said with a sigh. "We've got enough of them roaming the streets as it is, thanks to the Joker's big Arkham Asylum break out."

"Not to mention the nightmare that's occurring in Metropolis."

"You hear anything more about that?"

"Only what I just saw on the news," Olivia replied. "And it doesn't look good. Superman's down, sir. They've got it on the TV in the waiting room."

After watching a few minutes of talking heads babbling about whether or not Superman was alive, Gordon grimly shook his head. "While I feel for Superman, and the people of Metropolis, I'm also sincerely hoping that this doesn't spill over into Gotham City and the rest of the country."

Olivia was just about to assure him that the Martian Manhunter was already on his way to Metropolis to help out, until the thought occurred to her: how would she know that, unless the Manhunter had told her himself?

'He'll know soon enough, once J'onn shows up in Metropolis,' Olivia thought, as she bid him farewell for the night.

When Olivia went looking for Katie, she found the young woman by the parking lot entranceway, where Katie stood alone, looking both confused and worried. She had changed out of her hooker outfit and into a pair of dark blue sweatpants with a matching color sweatshirt and track shoes. Olivia thought Katie looked like a track star who was just about to disembark on her early morning run.

"Have you seen J'onn?" Katie asked. "I can't find him anywhere."

"I'm returning to the barn to see how Alex and the others are doing with Tetch," Olivia told her. "Come back with me."

"What's going on, Inspector?" Katie nervously asked, as they walked through the parking lot.

"Let's wait until we're in the car, shall we?" Olivia didn't want to have a superhero shop talk while standing in the middle of the parking lot.

Once they got inside the car, Olivia turned on the engine and said, "J'onn saw me before he left. He went to Metropolis to see if he can help."

Katie had a look of hopelessness on her face that made Olivia want to hug her. And so she did. As she pulled the trembling Katie into a tight embrace, Olivia said, "J'onn can take care of himself, and he's no slouch in the superpower department."

"But that…that _thing_ beat Superman to a pulp," Katie said, when they broke their embrace. "And they're saying on the news that Darkseid might have sent it. What if this is a new invasion?"

"There's the Justice League, as well as the X-Men…not to mention this new superhero group, the Avengers," Olivia said. "The point is, if Darkseid tries anything funny with Earth again, he's gonna have a major fight on his hands. We're not exactly helpless, here, Katie."

"But J'onn might get hurt…or worse!"

She burst into tears just then, and Olivia reached over and gently rubbed her shoulder. 'This is the side of superheroes that nobody ever seems to talk about,' Olivia thought. 'The family members who're left to worry themselves sick on the sidelines while their loved ones go out and risk their lives. It's basically the same story with cops and their families.'

Katie got hold of herself enough so that Olivia pulled the car out of the parking lot and onto the street, which was pretty much deserted this time of night. Katie took out her iPhone and found an online news site that reported live coverage of the battle between Superman and the being they called Doomsday.

Olivia thought back to the first incursion by Darkseid several years ago. Only nobody realized back then that it had been the beginning of a full-scale invasion of the Earth until it was all over. Superman had narrowly defeated the evil alien warlord at great cost to Metropolis in terms of life and damage. Yet Olivia also recalled there being some sort of treaty that was forged, one which protected them from any further attacks from Darkseid.

'Unless Darkseid decided to shuck that treaty,' Olivia thought. 'Jesus, as if dealing with the crap that we face everyday isn't enough, now we have to be worried about all of us being squashed like bugs from these psychotic aliens!'

"Wait, Stan, we've got a new development here," a female reporter announced over Katie's iPhone. "Looks like another superhero has joined the fray!"

"J'onn's there now!" Katie said excitedly. She held up her phone. "I just saw him fly in right behind the reporter. Just wish she'd get out of the way, I can't see anything!"

"Yes, Stan, I can now confirm that the Hulk has just joined the battle!" the reporter said.

"Oh, you dumb twit!" Katie angrily yelled at her phone. "That's the Martian Manhunter, you idiot! Oh, God, that just irritates the hell out of me!"

"You'd think these moron reporters would know the difference between J'onn and the Hulk," Olivia said in agreement, as she pulled the car into the police headquarters parking lot. "It's very bad reporting."

"Not only that, but it's racist, too," Katie said, still ticked off, as they got out of the car and walked over to the SVU entranceway.

Katie stayed in the bull pen, keeping tabs on what was happening in Metropolis, while Olivia visited the interrogation section. She found a weary Alex monitoring the interrogation of Tetch by Mike and Andrea through the two way mirror of the observation room.

"We get anything?" Olivia asked.

Alex just waved her hand in disgust. "Red Queen, Red Queen, Red Queen…that's all we're getting out of him. Mike and Andrea have practically threatened him with everybody but the kitchen sink, but nothing fazes him. It's obvious that whoever this Red Queen is, Tetch is scared to death of her."

A glance through the two way mirror showed Olivia that even Mike and Andrea were coming to the end of their rope. Tetch merely sat in the chair at the table, rocking back and forth, while staring off with a dazed expression into a fixed point on the opposite wall.

Andrea was still trying to get Tetch to talk by angrily threatening him with all kinds of legal hell, while Mike made a point of leaning over and waving his hand in front of Tetch's face.

When Olivia saw that Tetch didn't even blink, she tapped gently on the glass, which was a signal for Mike and Andrea to come into the observation room. Once they did, Olivia said, "Let's shut it down for the night. Tomorrow we'll get a shrink to examine him."

"You're helping him get set up for a really nice insanity defense," Alex warned.

"Which is probably what he's been after all along," Andrea muttered, annoyed.

But Mike shook his head. "Nah, I don't think he's faking it, Inspector. He really looks shell-shocked to me."

"But even if he _was_ faking it, there are still rules that we have to follow," Olivia told Alex and Andrea. "One of which states that a shrink must examine him if he shows even the slightest signs of mental illness while in custody. And, like it or not, that's what I'm seeing now. Let's put him on suicide watch in his cell, just to make sure."

Right at that instant, the door to the obseravtion room flew open as a terrified Katie held out her iPhone and cried: "HE'S DEAD! THAT MONSTER KILLED HIM!"

**B&B**

What should have been a gleaming city lit up by a miltitude of lights now looked like a darkened wasteland to J'onn as he came in for a landing in the battle zone. The only lights in the streets of Metropolis were the flashing red and blue emergency lights on emergency vehicles, as well as the bright lights generated by the TV reporters broadcasting live from the scene.

The creature let out a triumphant roar as it held up an unconscious Superman by his cape. Now in full Martian Manhunter mode, J'onn swept up from behind the monster, holding both of his fists outward, and collided with the creature head-on.

The impact by J'onn caught the creature off guard, making him drop Superman to the street. 'The skin on this monster is so hard, it's like hitting Varlarium Steel,' J'onn thought, as he flexed his hands to work out the pain he'd felt. 'The large crystal shards that cover the monster's body must also be underneath its skin as well.'

J'onn tried to see how Superman was holding up. The Man Of Steel now laid prone on the ground, not moving…which wasn't a very good sign. But before he could go properly check on Superman, J'onn was stopped when the monster stepped in front of him, and let out an angry roar.

"Not the talkative kind, I take it?" J'onn asked.

In response, the creature roared once more, as it swung its fist right at J'onn's head. J'onn easily ducked the blow, and delivered one of his own to the creature's right side, right in its ribs.

Or at least where its ribs should have been. Hitting the monster's side was like striking a plate of Varlarium armor. And the creature, who hardly felt the blow, quickly responded by belting J'onn across the mouth. The blow sent the Martain Manhunter staggering backwards into a wall.

The monster followed through with a shattering punch that was aimed once again right at J'onn's head…but J'onn had ducked out of the way, and the creature wound up punching a hole through the wall that was behind J'onn, and the wall collapsed.

J'onn smiled with satisfaction when he saw the creature get buried under several tons of cinderblocks. He turned to head back towards Superman, but a loud crashing noise made him turn back towards the creature once more.

J'onn was disappointed to see the monster had already freed itself from the rubble, and was now advancing towards him with another defiant roar.

'Utterly invincible, and tireless to boot,' J'onn thought, as he warily sized up his opponent. 'No wonder it brought Superman to the point of sheer exhaustion.'

"Your fight is now with me," J'onn told the advancing monster.

The creature let out another roar as it strode up to him….

…until it was slammed into the wreckage of a deserted bus by a giant, glowing green fist that came from the sky.

J'onn glanced up and smiled at the sight of Hal Jordan, aka Green Lantern, as he swooped down to the scene. "No, Manhunter, his fight is with _all_ of us."

When Green Lantern gestured towards the ground, J'onn was further pleased to see Wonder Woman, who stood with Captain Marvel and the Flash.

"You want a fight, monster?" Wonder Woman said with a frightening smile. She appeared almost giddy for combat. "You've got one!"

Undeterred, the raging creature charged forward, just as the heroes charged at him. Yet the battle was disrupted when a boom tube abruptly opened right in the middle of the combatants. In the midst of the fury from howling winds and static electricity, the creature wound up getting swallowed up by the boom tube just before it vanished.

"Who launched that boom tube?" Green Lantern asked. "Darkseid?"

"Who else could it be?" Wonder Woman said with a sneer. "Darkseid was protecting his pet!"

"Wait, we don't know," Flash countered. "It also could have been sent from New Genesis."

"The sooner we find out who sent that monster," Captain Marvel said, "the sooner we can track it down."

But J'onn left the heroes to their conversation as he ran back to see how Superman was doing. "Kal-El," he said, as he bent down and gently rolled the Man Of Steel over. "Kal-El, are you all right?"  
What J'onn saw was such a startling a sight to behold that he was shocked into silence.

Wonder Woman walked up to them just then, and when she saw the same thing that J'onn did, she muttered in a stunned whisper: "Great Hera…."

**B&B**

"I take it that's the battle over there," Robin said, as he pointed at the brightly flashing lights that emitted from the intersection ahead of them.

Since it was the only area of the blacked out Metropolis that was lit up beneath the Prowler, it was safe to assume that was indeed where the battle was. Yet Batman's attention was drawn elsewhere. "Look to the building on our right, Robin."

"That's Chloe and Lana's place," Robin instantly said. Like all other buildings in Metropolis, their condominium stood dark, having lost all power.

"Look at the terrace on the Northeast corner, two stories down," Batman said, as he sharply veered the Prowler towards the building.

Robin leaned forward in his seat. "That's somebody hanging from the terrace!"

"Now you see why we're making a stop here," Batman grimly said. He parked the Prowler directly under the young woman who dangled from the terrace.

"Oh, God, it's Chloe!" Robin said with horror. He hit the button that opened the Prowler's canopy, then he leapt out and dashed across the forward fuselage.

Chloe let out a wild scream when Robin grabbed her feet. Then, upon seeing who had grabbed her, she calmed down and released her grip on the terrace railing, falling into Robin's arms. Batman noted that she was barefoot, and clad only in pajama bottoms with a matching color t-shirt. 'Looks like she's been roused from bed,' he realized.

Batman glanced at the terrace and saw what she had been trying so desperately to escape from. A well-muscled thug wearing a cheap Halloween mask began to fearfully back away from the railing once he locked eyes with the Dark Knight.

Batman pulled out his grapple gun and shot it directly at the man. The masked man let out a shout of pain as the grapple grabbed him on the back of the neck. Batman then reversed the grapple gun, which hauled the man back up against the terrace railing.

Batman strode to the edge of the Prowler, where he wrapped an arm around the neck of the intruder and ripped his mask off. "What the hell are you doing here?!" Batman snarled into the man's ear.

A dark spot appeared on the crotch of the man's jeans, which indicated that he had just wet himself. It was good to know he had the bastard's full attention, at least. "ANSWER ME!" Batman growled. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!"

"I-It was Grinners' idea! I swear!" the man cried. "I-I was only doing what he said, I swear!"

"_WHAT_ WAS HIS IDEA?!" Batman demanded.

"This was a home invasion," Chloe said from behind Batman. He turned to see that she now stood beside Robin, still tightly holding him with both arms. "Once the power went out, the entire building was invaded by these goons with masks. They went from condo to condo, rounding up all the tenants. They brought them up to our penthouse! They were separating the men and women into two rooms. I managed to untie myself and escape, until this clown tracked me down."

"Are you all right?" Batman asked.

Chloe nodded. "But the others are still up there, at the mercy of these goons. And Lana is with them."  
Batman tightened his headlock on the goon's neck until he passed out. Then he bound the unconscious goon's wrists to the terrace railing.

"You think this is connected to Superman's battle?" Robin asked, as they got back into the Prowler's cockpit and sealed over the canopy.

"Not directly," Batman said. He brought the Prowler up to the roof of the building. "This is a side effect of the battle; Superman is diverted, Metropolis is blacked out, its police and emergency services are stretched to the breaking point. What better time for the vermin to come out and play?"

He parked the Prowler on the roof of the penthouse, then popped the canopy. He turned to Chloe and said, "Stay here, in the Prowler. Robin and I have some cleaning up to do. But first, I've got to make a phone call."

Using the Prowler's control panel, Batman made a call to the JLA. He informed the Red Tornado, who was on sentry duty up at the satellite, of looters in Chloe and Lana's building, plus the possibility of more looting in Metropolis as a whole.

Red Tornado, an android with a personality as bland as white bread, calmly assured Batman that help was on the way. When Batman tired to point out that more help was needed in Metropolis overall, and not just with Superman at the battle, the android simply repeated his assurance that help was on the way.

As he ended the call, Batman just shook his head in a disapproving manner. 'It appears Wonder Woman was correct in assigning Red Tornado to permanent duty as the JLA's call center,' he realized. 'For that was all the android was really good for.'

Having left Chloe safe in the Prowler, Batman and Robin moved across the rooftop towards the penthouse. Switching to thermal-vison in his cowl told Batman that there was a large assembly of people in the room directly ahead of them. Many of the people looked to be seated or laying on the floor.

'The hostages,' Batman realized. Going through the window would be a problem. It was too small, and they might get hung up, where they'd make the perfect targets for the home intruders inside.

"Go through the backyard door?" Robin asked.

Batman nodded. The penthouse was so large it actually had a backyard; although it was a small one by most accounts. They cut through the Jacuzzi section and silently strode up to the glass sliding doors.

There was a wild party inside the living room, with the music blasting to a deafening level. 'Good,' Batman thought, 'the music will muffle the screaming from those guarding the hostages.'

Batman saw that those enjoying the revelry looked to be mostly young gang members, mostly men, all wearing an assortment of cheap Halloween masks over their heads. There were also a few women who danced with the men. Some of the girls also wore masks and dressed in casual, knockabout clothing of jeans and simple tops. But there were several masked women who danced very reluctantly; looking fearful of their dance partners. These women looked like captured tenants, for they were clad only in pajamas and nightshirts, and it was clear that they were being forced to dance.

Batman turned to Robin and said, "You ready?"

"Let's do this," Robin grunted.

When Batman nodded, Robin pulled open the sliding door and they entered the party. Batman strode up to the first home intruder, a big bruiser who slow-danced with one of the captured tenants, and politely tapped him on the shoulder.

When the man turned his masked face towards Batman, the Dark Knight slugged him with a right hook. The man fell backwards, stunned, but Batman stayed on him, kicking him in the stomach. Then, when he bent over in pain from the stomach kick, Batman clasped both of his hands together and smashed them down into the back of the man's head. That dropped him to the floor for good.

A glance at Robin saw him easily taking out another bruiser, so Batman focused his attention on the woman who stood there, clad only in an over-sized t-shirt, with her wrists bound behind her back with duct tape. When Batman removed her mask, he saw that she was also gagged. Batman quickly cut her bonds with a Batdart as he pulled her to the floor and said, "Stay down, the party's about to get even more wild."

"They have the rest of the tenants tied up in the two bedrooms," the woman told him, after removing her gag. "Men on the left, women on the right, just down the hall…."

"Thanks, just stay here." Another goon, upon seeing Batman, raced up to hit him with a crowbar. But Robin intercepted him and punched his lights out.

By this time, the rest of the party knew they were there, and most of them merely ran out the room in fear for their lives. Three of the men, who looked like they fancied themselves tough guys, stayed behind and began pulling out various knives.

"This ain't Gotham City!" one of them, a guy with a ghoul mask on, angrily said. He acted as if Batman and Robin had broken the rules of some unknown game. "What the hell you doing here?"

"Just visiting," Robin replied, as he kicked the man right in the face. The blow sent him straight to the floor, where he stayed put.

The remaining two goons who faced the Dark Knight both gave each other an anxious look as they slowly started to back up. They held up their knives at him in a feeble gesture of defense. "Uh, hey…look," one of them uneasily said, "we don't want no trouble!"

"Then you should've stayed home tonight," Batman snarled, as he charged at them.

The goons each let out a terrified scream as they broke ranks and ran for their lives down the hallway, towards the bedrooms. They were both shouting "Grinner!"

This couldn't have worked out better for the Dark Knight, who was hot on their tail. 'These idiots are leading me right to their leader.'

They ran to the bedroom on the right and started pounding frantically on the door. "GRINNER! LET US IN…PLEASE, OH GOD…PLEASE, PLEASE LET US IIIINNNN!"

The bedroom door across the hall swung open to reveal another goon, who poked his masked head out into the hallway and asked, "What the hell are you two screaming about?"

As if in response, Robin came up just then and landed a blow right across the masked man's lower jaw, sending him reeling back into the bedroom. Robin effortlessly blocked an attack by a second masked man from the same bedroom and kicked him back inside.

Meanwhile, the bedroom door the two screaming goons had been pounding on finally opened…just as Batman grabbed them from behind and bashed their heads together, knocking them out.

This led to a comical moment when the goon inside the bedroom who had opened the door now stared at the sight of Batman in sheer terror. It was easy to see his wide, fearful eyes through the eyeholes of his mask.

"Oh, fu…" he started to say, just before Batman slugged him.

Once he fell to the floor, Batman finally had a clear view of the bedroom.

And what he saw enraged him to no end.

A group of women, all scantily clad in sleep clothes, sat on the floor in the corner of the bedroom. Tied hand and foot, they helplessly huddled together in a tight cluster up against the wall. And over on the bed lay Lana Lang, who was also tied hand and foot and gagged. A man straddled her. Armed with a knife, he was in the process of cutting off her clothing, which was nothing more than a short sleeping gown to begin with. He casually glanced over at the door and said, "What was it?"

In that instant, Batman saw why the other goons called him Grinner. Because, instead of a cheap rubber mask like his accomplices, Grinner wore white face paint with red lipstick scrawled across his lower face like a ghastly grin.

In short, the little weasel was dressed up just like the Joker.

When he saw the Batman, "Grinner's" eyes grew as wide as saucers as he scrambled to climb off of the trussed up Lana. But he let out a choking sound when Batman had grabbed him by the neck and hauled him off of her in one sweeping motion.

Batman then glared into Grinner's face and roared, "YOU LITTLE PUNK!"

"MOMMY!" the Joker wannabe screamed in horror.

Robin, who appeared at the door with several of the now-freed men from the other bedroom, just shook his head somberly. "Oh, dude," he said to Grinner, "of all the things you could have dressed up as, it had to be the Joker?! Man, I _so_ don't want to be you right now…."

"Let me guess," Batman snarled to Grinner, "you're the brains of this outfit, and seeing the IQs of _this_ bunch, that's not saying much. But wearing a rubber fright mask just didn't cut it for you, did it, junior? No, you had to get dressed up as everybody's favorite psychotic scumbag!"

"I-I'm sorry," Grinner said timidly.

"Not as sorry as you're going to be," Batman said. He slugged the Joker wannabe into unconsciousness.

And with that, it was over.

Batman moved to free Lana, while Robin helped the newly freed men to cut the bonds of the group of women in the corner. Soon the room reverberated with the joyful sounds of husbands and wives reunited after having survived a fearful night.

Lana was so happy to see the Batman that, once freed of her bonds, she reached up and hugged him tightly.

'Second time I've been hugged tonight,' the Dark Knight noted. He began to wonder if his Batsuit was beginning to lose its scare factor, until he realized that neither little Kelsey nor Lana had anything to fear from him. "Are you all right?" he asked her.

"Yes," Lana said, breaking her embrace. She grinned happily at Batman as she wiped away a tear. Then her smile faded as she glanced nervously around the bedroom. "Chloe?!"

"We got her, she's safe," Batman told her. He pressed the comm button in his cowl to open a channel to the Prowler. "Chloe, it's all secure. You can come in, now. Chloe?"

When there was no answer, Batman gave Robin a cagey look, and then they were both running out the door. As they ran back out to where the Prowler was parked, Robin kept trying to call Chloe over the comm, but to no avail.

Once they reached the Prowler, Batman popped the canopy, and was greeted by the sight of an extremely distraught Chloe, who sat curled up in the seat, crying profusely.

Robin climbed in and gently held her against him. "Lana is safe, and so is everybody else," he said. "What's wrong?"

Chloe, too upset for words, just pointed at the control console of the Prowler, and Batman saw that she had the local Metropolis news on. There was a live shot of Wonder Woman, The Flash, Captain Marvel, Green Lantern and the Martian Manhunter as they all gazed somberly down at Superman, who lay very still on the ground before them.

'Dear God,' Batman thought with growing horror, 'don't let it be what I think it is….'

"Once again, the absolute stunning news that's coming out of Metropolis this early hour," the news anchor grimly said. "We can now confirm that Superman _is_ dead. He was killed in battle early this morning, fighting with the monster known as Doomsday."

**To Be Continued...**


	4. Chapter 4

_My thanks to Stargaze29 for the review. I'd also like to thank those of you who've either favored me, or this story._

**Batman & Benson**

**Chapter Four**

Barbara awoke the next day with a hopeful feeling that everything she had experienced yesterday was just a bad dream. As she lay in bed in her suite at Wayne Manor, she was convinced, if only for a few seconds, that the very notion that Superman could be killed was ridiculous.

Yet as she arose from bed, the familiar dreary memories from last night came flooding back to her. She remembered crying so hard in the Batcave when she'd first heard the news that Barbara had to wait until she composed herself before relaying Superman's death to Batman. Rachel, who was also crying, had held her tightly.

But the Dark Knight had already known about Superman's death, and as he updated Barbara on the situation from his end, she could almost detect a raggedness to his voice that she had never heard before. Although it was in the faintest way possible, it was still clear that the news of the Man Of Steel's demise had deeply affected Batman, as well.

The Dark Knight had returned to the Batcave about an hour later, just as the sun came up, and he returned alone. Robin had elected to remain in Metropolis with Chloe and Lana, to try and help out however he could in this dire crisis. Once back in the Batcave, Batman had wearily removed his cowl and hugged Rachel tightly. That was when Bruce had thanked Barbara for her service and told her to get some rest.

"This is a dark day for all of us," he had said. "And we still don't know what else it will bring. So you'd better get some rest while you can."

Although the very last thing Barbara had wanted to do was sleep, she was now amazed at how quickly she had dropped off once she climbed into bed. When she first awoke, a glance at the clock on her nightstand told her it was ten-forty five; she had nearly slept away the entire morning. Eager to meet whatever challenges the new day may have brought with it, Barbara quickly showered. After drying off and putting on her underwear, she laid out fresh clothes: a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt that had the word 'invincible!' written across the chest.

Barbara instantly realized that maybe a shirt with the word invincible on the front might not be the best thing to wear on the day after Superman had been killed. Barbara certainly knew that _she_ didn't feel very invincible, especially since having been shown that the Man Of Steel, Mr. Invincible himself, could be so tragically struck down.

And so she chose a more demure, long-sleeved shirt to wear with her jeans, a sweater that had no writing on it at all. Once dressed, Barbara decided to go barefoot; she wasn't planning on going outside, and if she were called to duty, her full Batgirl outfit was waiting for her in the Batcave, anyway.

As she made her bed, a glance out the windows of Barbara's bedroom suite revealed a gray, rainy day, one that seemed to be perfect for her mood of mourning over the loss of Superman. Yet Barbara suddenly let out a gasp when she saw a shocking sight on the back patio just below her.

It was Kara Kent, fully clad in her Supergirl outfit, who was bent over on all fours on the smooth granite floor of the patio, looking as if she were in great pain.

"Oh, Gawd!" Barbara cried, as she ran out of her suite and made her way downstairs, where she found Alfred working in the kitchen. She stopped running long enough to say, "IT'S KARA!"

Then she ran outside to Kara, with Alfred right behind her. Yet Barbara quickly saw that Kara wasn't in physical pain per se; she had been crying her eyes out, and when she saw Barbara, Kara just reached out with one hand while she continued to sob uncontrollably.

Barbara knelt down in front of her friend and hugged her tightly. As she comforted Kara the best she could, the tears also started to well up within Barbara's eyes.

"I was in J-Japan," Kara said, in-between sobs, "on a goodwill tour for the JLA, w-when I heard the news…."

Barbara had lost track of how long she had held Kara. Yet she didn't care; all that mattered was that she could offer whatever solace she could in silence. There was nothing really that she could say at a time like this; Barbara just held the sobbing Kara and gently rocked her while she rubbed Kara's back.

'Hard to believe that this very same girl could bench-press this entire mansion,' Barbara thought sadly. 'And here she is, bawling her eyes out on my shoulder….'

Barbara never knew Bruce had come out onto the massive patio until she saw his hand reach out and gently stroke Kara's blonde hair.

Kara glanced up at him and gripped his hand in her own while she still held tightly onto Barbara. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to impose like this! I was on my way to Metropolis when I just became so overcome with emotion…I just couldn't continue flying…I'm sorry."

"Nonsense," Bruce said softly, "you've nothing to apologize about. You're always welcome here, Kara. You know that."

"Might I suggest we get inside?" Alfred gently said.

Barbara was surprised to see the butler stood over her and Kara holding an opened umbrella. It was now raining lightly. 'Damn, how long has Alfred been standing over us, protecting us from the rain like that?' she wondered.

Still, going inside sounded like a good idea to her. As Barbara stood up, she tenderly helped a shaky Kara to her feet and walked her into Wayne Manor proper. Once inside, Barbara tried to help a still-stunned Kara to relax as much as possible by removing her cape and boots and making her sit down on the sofa in the main living room.

"Have you eaten?" Barbara asked her. "I know that might be a stupid question to ask right about now, but…."

Kara smiled wanly at her. "Not really hungry. But I could use an iced tea. You got any on hand?"

Barbara stood up and went to the kitchen. "Are you kidding? Alfred makes the best iced tea in the world!"

"Not as good as Martha Kent's," was Kara's sad rejoinder.

'Oh, Gawd, that poor woman!' Barbara thought with a cringe as she padded into the kitchen. 'Martha must be just as devastated as Kara! Heck, even more so, since she raised Clark as if he were her own!'

Bruce and Alfred were chatting intently when Barbara walked up to them. "Kara could use some iced tea," she told Alfred, who promptly went to get it for her. Turning to Bruce, Barbara asked, "Where is everybody?"

"Rachel already left for work, and Liv and Alex decided to stay in the city," Bruce replied. "They were just swamped with work."

Barbara noted that Bruce glared at something, and she saw that it was the small plasma TV on the kitchen counter. It was tuned to a news show, which had an interview with Amanda Waller. Barbara thought the head of the OHMR was at her insufferable best as she proceeded to blame Superman for the devastation wreaked upon Metropolis by his battle with Doomsday.

"Perhaps the senseless slaughter we see here will finally open people's eyes to the fact that these super-powered beings are a danger to normal people," Waller angrily stated. "The world is mourning the death of Superman, but they forget the countless innocent people who've died here, all killed in _his_ reckless battle."

When Alfred presented the glass of iced tea to Barbara on a tray, he gave the TV a glare and said, "Ms. Waller has the unique ability to go for the throat at the most inopportune time, doesn't she?"

"Nobody seems to mention the fact of how many lives Superman saved just by battling Doomsday," Barbara angrily said. "Lives that he saved by giving his own."

"This is the perfect moment for Waller and her supporters to strike," Bruce said grimly. "The news is reporting that two thirds of Metropolis had been destroyed in that battle last night. And that's on top of losing Superman. This is a major league disaster that's tailor-made for the Anti-Meta crowd to take advantage of by spinning the facts in their favor."

"It's a good thing the battle occurred at night in the business district," Alfred said. "That cut down on the number of casualties, at least."

When Barbara rejoined Kara, she saw that her friend was speaking on the landline phone. Seeing Barbara standing there with her drink, Kara mouthed the name "Martha" at her.

Barbara nodded as she placed the iced tea on the table before sitting down next to Kara, who sat cross-legged on the sofa. "No, there's no need to do that," Kara said, sounding firm. "I'll come to you. Yes, Martha, I insist. We'll both go to Metropolis together. Ok, I'll be right there."

Hanging up the phone, Kara quickly pulled her cape and boots back on.

"You going to Smallville?" Barbara asked, sad to see her friend leaving so soon.

Kara nodded. Although her face still looked ashen, she had put aside her grief for now. "Martha wants to go to Metropolis, she wants to be near Clark, but she's not sure how to get into the city, since most of it has just been cordoned off, thanks to all the damage from the fight. I told her that I can get her in. I'm taking her to Lana's."

"Dick is there, he's staying with Chloe and Lana," Bruce said from the doorway. "I'll give him a call and let him know you're on your way."

"Do you know if Lana's building still has power?" Kara asked, just before she drank down the iced tea in one gulp.

Bruce shook his head. "Not when I left early this morning. They were the victims of a home invasion by a band of thugs during the battle. It's all right, now. We rounded them up."

That gave Kara pause. "Great Scott! Are Lana and Chloe ok?!"

"They've been through a lot, but they're hanging tough," Bruce told her. "How are you?"

Kara smiled at him as she placed the empty glass back on the serving plate. "Much better, since I stopped here. Thanks again."

Bruce nodded. "Anytime. And, Kara, whatever you need…just ask."

"I will." Kara then hugged Barbara tightly. "Thanks, Bat-Mite."

"Hey, hey!" Barbara said with mock anger. "That's the thanks I get?! Seriously, call me whenever you can. No matter how late it is."

"I will." Kara then left through the back patio door. She was in the air within a split second of stepping outside.

Barbara stood at the glass doors, watching as Kara disappeared into a small dot in the gray skies. She had always envied her friend for having the gift of flight. Right now Barbara found herself wishing that she could just fly away from all the troubles that seemed to be piling up as high as a mountain before them.

"Barbara, are _you_ all right?" Bruce asked with concern.

She gazed back at him and shook her head. "No. Not really. You have to admit, things have been looking pretty bleak, lately."

"There's an old saying, love," Alfred said, as he scooped up the glass and tray from the table, "it's always darkest before the dawn…."

As Alfred left to bring the glass and tray into the kitchen, Barbara was taken aback at how distracted Bruce looked just now. He must have noticed the concern on her face, because Bruce just chuckled slightly and said, "Sorry if I seem a little out of it, I'm worried about Rachel. She didn't sleep very well last night; she suffered from some pretty horrendous nightmares, the kind where she awoke screaming. But when I asked if she was all right, Rachel just said she was fine…however, I could tell she wasn't."

Barbara thought back to the scare that Rachel suffered in the foyer last night. When she told Bruce about it, he listened intently before nodding. "I was wondering if the assault on her by Clayface may have left psychological scars within Rachel," he said. "It would be understandable, considering the trauma that she suffered."

"Who can she talk to about being assaulted by a super villain in her own home?" Barbara asked. "That kind of subject matter is way beyond the discretion that a psychiatrist usually offers."

"She could talk to me," Bruce said. He grew thoughtful. "Tonight's Friday night. Assuming there's no major crisis here in Gotham City, I'll make it an early night and see if I can get Rachel to talk to me."

"Maybe she's just depressed," Barbara said wanly. "I mean, losing Superman, Metropolis in ruins…I'm willing to bet a lot of people are feeling depressed lately."

Bruce placed his arm over her shoulders. It felt very good to Barbara. "Remember what Alfred said, about it always darkest before the dawn. We thrive in that darkness. Facing the darkness is when we're at our best."

Despite his efforts to cheer her up, Barbara did not really share Bruce's optimism. Because, despite all that had occurred, Barbara still could not shake the sinking feeling that, as bad as things already are, they were about to get much, much worse.

**B&B**

"Good morning, gentlemen," James Varlis said with a cheery smile as he entered the room.

Braddock just nodded in greeting at his former employer in a guarded manner. The room they were in was adjacent to a large empty warehouse that was on the outskirts of Briarwood airport, which was located in the suburbs just south of Gotham City. Briarwood was built to host smaller, private planes, which made it a refuge for the super-wealthy who wanted to avoid the usually overcrowded Gotham City International Airport.

Braddock sat on an old crate, alongside Daniel "Jugsy" Judge, and Ralph Connors. Moses "Mo" Longmans leaned up against the concrete wall, watching coolly as Samuel Kruse paced back and forth in his usual jittery manner.

When he saw Varlis enter, Kruse stopped pacing long enough to mutter, "Took you long enough to get here."

"Way to say thanks to the guy who sprung us," an annoyed Braddock said.

Kruse just waved his hands at him as he continued to pace back and forth. "How do we know Varlis isn't setting us up, here?"

"You were already in prison, Mr. Kruse," Varlis said. "Why would I spring all of you out, just to frame you again?"

"Don't mind him, Mr. Varlis," Mo said. He was a hefty black man in his forties with the casual air of a man who had seen it all. "I, for one, am very happy to be out of jail."

"You don't get it, do you?" Kruse angrily told Mo. "Nothing's free in this world." He gestured at Varlis. "Now here comes how he wants us to pay him back…."

Varlis sheepishly glanced down at the floor. "Actually, gentlemen, I wanted to speak with you about what you will be doing from this point onward."

Kruse just laughed without a trace of humor and pointed at Varlis. "You see? What did I tell ya?"

Ralph, who handled all of the computers and electronics during the Manbat fiasco, pushed his glasses back against his eyes and cleared his throat. "Um, maybe we should just hear the guy out, first?"

"Yeah, I agree," Jugsy added. "I mean, since we're all here, anyway…."

Braddock glanced at Varlis and said, "You have the floor, sir."

"'Sir'? You hear this?" Kruse said to Mo with a chuckle. "He's still calling him sir! Varlis ain't no longer a senator, Braddock!"

"But I still had the means to get all of you out of jail," Varlis said calmly. "Just as I still have the means to get revenge on the bastard who cost me my job…the very same bastard who got all of you locked up, the Batman. I'm now looking to put him down, permanently. You boys interested in a little payback?"

"You want us to help you to kill the Batman?" Mo asked in disbelief.

Varlis shook his head. "I want you to help Bane kill the Batman."

Jugsy looked startled. "Bane?"

"You've heard of him?" Varlis asked.

"Yeah, he's a contract killer for some drug lord south of the boarder," Jugsy replied. "I heard about him back when I was hiding out in Mexico. Dude's a stone cold killer. I mean, I heard he can literally rip a guy's heart right out of his frigging chest…no joke!"

"No joke indeed," Varlis said solemnly. "I saw him do this with my own eyes. If anybody can kill the Batman, Bane can. And he will be here, later tonight, arriving at this very airport."

"Holy shit," Braddock whispered in shock, as he stood up and regarded Varlis with awe. "You seriously mean to do this, don't you? Actually hunt down and kill the Batman?"

Varlis began removing several large sealed envelopes from his briefcase. "Have you boys seen the news lately?"

"Yeah," Ralph said. "Superman is dead."

"One of the most powerful of the metas, the most influential of all of these godless mutants, is dead," Varlis triumphantly said, as he passed each man an envelope. "If this is not a sign from God himself that the age of these false prophets, these deceivers, is coming to an end, then I don't know what is. I ask you, what better time than now to take down the Batman?"

Braddock's eyes grew wide with shock when he opened the envelope and saw there was at least several thousand dollars inside. Mo let out a long low whistle of approval when he saw his cash.

"Ten thousand, each. Consider that your down payment for the job," Varlis told them. "All expenses will be paid out of my pocket. And when the Batman is finally dead, you will each receive another fifty thousand. All you have to do is offer whatever support that Bane needs in hunting down and killing the Dark Knight. Since he'll be taking on the Batman himself in combat, Bane will be in charge of the overall job."

"And if we say no?" Kruse asked.

"Then put the money down and walk out of here, free and clear," Varlis responded. He glanced at the five men with a knowing expression. "But I'm paying you for the chance to get sweet revenge, as well as make history, as part of the team that kills the Batman. Is that something that _any_ of you can really walk away from?"

"Hell no, sir," Braddock said, already feeling the excitement of the coming hunt. He would love nothing more than to help bring down the Batman. "Count me in!"

"Yeah, me too," Jugsy quickly added.

"I'm in, too," Ralph spoke up.

"Wouldn't miss this for the world," Mo serenely chimed in.

Kruse took one more look at the wad of cash he held in his hands. Then he glanced up and said, "Yeah, you can consider me a loyal member of Bane's team, too, Mr. Varlis…_sir_."

**B&B**

Olivia had went back to the hospital early that morning to check on the remaining children who still hadn't been claimed by their parents. It turned out there were only two: poor little Jonah, and Kelsey, the little girl who was immune to the Mad Hatter's tech. But even if Kelsey had been claimed by her parents, she wouldn't have been able to leave the hospital, since Olivia had arranged it so that Kelsey was kept under police guard. When she paid a visit to the girl, Olivia was surprised to see Jonah was there with her.

Jonah, who sat on Kelsey's bed with her, greeted Olivia like a long-lost friend, holding out his arms affectionately at her until she scooped him up in a tender embrace. Olivia had to admit that it was great holding the little guy close to her again, and a part of her almost wished his parents would take their time in claiming him.

'It's very odd that we haven't heard from Jonah's parents, yet,' Olivia thought. 'Especially since we've had Jonah's name and face plastered all over the news overnight.'

Olivia wondered darkly if Jonah's parents lived in Metropolis. If that were the case, it might explain the delay in their response, since that devastated city now looked like a battle zone in the harsh light of day. The unofficial estimate for the dead was now at several hundred, but the authorities still haven't even begun an assessment of the casualties, yet. As a matter of fact, people were still being rescued from the rubble by both superheroes and specialized rescue teams who flew in from the world over.

Olivia pushed the tragedy in Metropolis to the back of her mind so she could focus on the problems at hand. As she held Jonah in her arms, Olivia glanced over at Kelsey, who sat back on her bed casually clad in a hospital gown and robe.

"He really likes you," Kelsey said with a smile.

"Yeah, Jonah and I are old friends, aren't we?" Olivia asked the boy, who just grinned happily ay her. "How are you doing, Kelsey?"

"My mom's coming to get me," the girl said with a smile. Then her smile faded. "As soon as she gets up the money…."

"Did your mom contact you?"

"She just called here," a familiar voice said from the doorway.

Olivia turned to see Dr. Christine Darrow walk into the room. Olivia knew Christine well from their social circles; she was the lover of Renee Montoya, with their relationship having been dramatically outed when Renee showed up injured in the ER where Christine had been working.

Since then, Renee and Christine had become something of an item, having made a big splash at the recent Gotham City Police's annual Halloween Ball, when they showed up in costume as Sam Carter and Vala Mal Doran, a pair of characters from a TV show called Stargate SG-1. Olivia, who had been dressed up as horror hostess Elvira, thought they made an adorably cute couple.

"Can I talk to you in private outside for a sec?" Olivia asked Christine.

After placing Jonah with Kelsey, Olivia went outside to the hallway and asked Christine if they had heard from Jonah's family.

"No, nothing so far," Christine said, looking uneasy. "Which is not a good sign."

"I'll say," Olivia agreed. "Is there any chance that Jonah might be from Metropolis?"

Christine's eyes grew very wide with horror at that thought. "You know, I haven't thought of that! If that were the case, it would explain a lot. Oh, for his sake, I hope Jonah's not from Metropolis."

"Has Jonah talked about his family at all?"

"Only that he misses his mommy and daddy, but he doesn't know where he lives. He's a really big Star Wars fan, that we do know."

"What about Kelsey? Have you noticed anything off kilter with her, physically?"

Christine frowned in thought. "No, not at all. She's a perfectly healthy little girl, just like Jonah is a perfectly healthy little boy. Why do you ask?"

"Kelsey is immune to the Mad Hatter slave control device, and I was just wondering if she could be a meta. Is that something that can actually be seen in a regular checkup?"

"If they're a meta? No, not always. Sometimes the abilities that make metas special are completely invisible to the medical sciences. They're doing a lot of studies on it, but meta research is still in its infancy. I recall when Superman once voluntarily submitted to a medical exam at Star Labs, and he…."

Christine stopped when her voice changed pitch and she became emotional. "Sorry," she said, her eyes welling up, "but I'm finding it hard to even talk about Superman lately…."

Olivia rubbed the side of her arm in consolation. "Don't be sorry, I know exactly how you feel. It's been a struggle for me just to stay focused on the day to day stuff."

After receiving contact information for Kelsey's mother from Christine, Olivia asked if both Kelsey and Jonah could be released into her custody, and they were. Olivia called ahead to let Linda know that she was returning, and to make sure Linda had beds set up for Kelsey and Jonah. Olivia had no intention of having the kids spend the night at the SVU; the beds were for if they got tired during the day. She fully expected to have them reunited with their families by the end of the day.

'And if not, then we'll cross that bridge when we get to it,' she thought.

Olivia took them both back with her to the SVU bullpen, where they were warmly greeted by everyone.

Olivia couldn't help but notice that J'onn wasn't in, and that Katie looked very glum as she sat at her desk. 'He must still be working relief efforts in Metropolis,' Olivia thought, as she strolled into her office with Kelsey at her side and Jonah in her arms. Olivia was surprised to see both Alex and Rachel, who both waited for them in Olivia's office. Alex explained that Linda had informed them earlier that Olivia was coming back shortly, and so they stuck around until she got back.

Alex had bad news for her. Dr. Fleiss, the SVU psychiatrist, had pronounced Jervis Tetch to be insane and had him moved to Arkham Asylum for further evaluation. Rachel had even worse news for her when she told Olivia about how her entire Manbat case was promptly taken apart by the feds.

"Damn it," Olivia said…then she sheepishly glanced over at Jonah and Kelsey, to make sure they didn't hear her curse. They were playing hide and seek with each other by the sofa. "Does Barbara know, yet?"

"She was there when I got the news. Frankly, she was more alarmed at what was happening in Metropolis at the time. Just as I was, too," Rachel replied. She suppressed a yawn. "Oh…excuse me! Didn't get much sleep last night."

"Welcome to the club," Olivia muttered, as she stifled a yawn of her own. She was about to ask Rachel another question when Olivia saw something so startling she stopped dead in her tracks.

Rachel stared off with such abject horror that it was a shocking sight to see. Olivia glanced over and saw that Kelsey and Jonah, while playing their impromptu game of hide and seek, had accidentally side-swiped the coat hanger by the door of Olivia's office. The coat hanger wasn't knocked over, but a scarf that hung from one of its hooks fell to the floor in a billowing motion. This was what had caught Rachel's eye, and had caused the sheer look of terror on the woman's face.

Rachel quickly caught herself and smiled meekly at Olivia and Alex. "Sorry. I thought that scarf was something more than it was. Guess I'm a lot more tired than I thought."

After Rachel quickly excused herself, Olivia picked up the scarf from the floor. Both Kelsey and Jonah stood watching her with guilty looks. "Sorry," Kelsey said.

"Don't worry about it, guys," Olivia cheerily assured them. "No harm done."

This caused them to promptly begin their game of hide and seek anew. Alex watched them with a smile on her face…which faded when Olivia came over to her and whispered, "There's something seriously wrong with Rachel. She's really bothered by something."

"It's just stress, Liv. Rach has just won a re-election, on top of dealing with everything else."

But Olivia shook her head. She had dealt with far too many victims while working in the SVU to just ignore the troubling signs that she had just seen Rachel exhibit. And from the looks of it, Rachel had displayed the classic symptoms of post traumatic distress. And that worried Olivia to no end. "She's been jittery like this for far longer than the re-election. She's been jumping at shadows ever since Clayface paid us a visit at the Manor."

Before Alex could reply, she and Olivia looked over at the doorway, where Katie had paused with uncertainty. "Come in, Katie," Olivia offered. "What's up?"

"I've got to get going, anyway," Alex told Olivia. "I've got a court case in ten minutes, and then there's some people I have to meet, afterwards. I'll talk to you later, Liv."

"I'm calling Kelsey's mom," Olivia told her. "I want to get the ball rolling in having her brought here to Gotham. By the time I speak with you, I should have an update on that."

Alex waved at her from the doorway. "Great! Talk to you when I talk to you."

As she entered the office, Katie smiled in greeting at the kids, who momentarily swirled around her while they chased each other in their little game. But when Katie strode up to Olivia, the concern on her face was obvious.

"J'onn's just called me now," Katie whispered. She glanced back at the laughing kids, just to make sure they couldn't hear her. "He's going with several others from the JLA on a trip to Apokolips. The JLA wants to find out what involvement Apokolips had with Doomsday, if any. They're going to confront Darkseid, Inspector."

The look of fear and panic on Katie's face was painful for Olivia to see. "You said yourself that he's not going by himself. There will be others from the JLA with him, right?"

Katie shook her head as she nervously wrung her hands. "Yes, but…what if Darkseid _was_ behind Superman's death, and what if war breaks out, and J'onn winds up being trapped over there on…."

Olivia glanced at the kids and saw they were now staring at Katie with intense curiosity. Katie ceased babbling when Olivia reached out and gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. "J'onn can take care of himself," Olivia told her in a whisper. "Just have faith in him, and that he'll be safe, and don't drive yourself crazy with worry, ok?"

"Yeah," Katie said with a deep breath. Her anxiety seemed to have been instantly vanquished once she exhaled. "You're right, Inspector, as always." Katie turned to the kids and added, "Hey, did you guys eat, yet?"

"I'd love a taco," Kelsey spoke up.

"Kelsey!" Olivia chided her, with a glance at her watch. "It's not even ten o'clock, yet! That's a little too early for a taco, isn't it?"

"The Copper restaurant in the lobby downstairs serves breakfast tacos," Katie said. "They're pretty good."

When Jonah abruptly walked over to Olivia and hugged her leg, Olivia bent down and asked, "You want something to eat, honey?"

But Jonah, who looked bothered by something, just shook his head.

"Why don't you bring him up something, too? Just in case he gets hungry," Olivia said to Katie.

She went to open her purse to give Katie some money, but stopped when Katie waved her off. "I got this, Inspector. You want anything?"

After Olivia asked for an apple juice and a breakfast taco (she figured she might as well try one), Katie left to get the food. Olivia then scooped Jonah up in her arms and brought him over to her desk, where she sat down and pulled her phone over. "I'm going to call your mom and have her brought here to Gotham City, Kelsey."

Kelsey shook her head. "But she can't afford to come here just yet."

"Don't worry about that, sweetie," Olivia assured her. "We're bringing your mom here, free of charge."

"Where's mommy?" Jonah asked plaintively, as he stared at the TV monitor on the wall of Olivia's office.

Olivia glanced up and saw the TV had been switched to the news, which showed the terrible destruction that Metropolis had suffered. The images were of several collapsed buildings, which had caught fire and trailed large black columns of smoke into the clear skies. Olivia was heartened to see Hawkman and Hawkgirl, as they swooped down to some of the ruins and plucked out a pair of survivors.

"Where do you live, Jonah?" she soothingly asked the little boy. "Do you live in Metropolis?"

"He does," Kelsey said gravely. "He told me before that he lives where Superman lives." She cast a wary eye at the devastation in Metropolis on the TV and started to say, "Do you think that his parents might be…?"

"Let's not assume the worst," Olivia said, gently cutting her off. She gazed down at the frightened Jonah. "If your parents are out there, Jonah, I will find them for you. I promise, ok?"

That seemed to satisfy the boy, who nodded. "Ok. Can I have a taco?"

"Of course you can, sweetheart," Olivia said, chuckling, as she dialed the number for Kelsey's mother.

**B&B**

When Alex arrived in the little park across the street from the DA's office, known to many in Gotham City unofficially as DA's Park, she was pleased to see Marguerite Pena and Jordan Cavanaugh were already seated on the bench, chatting amicably while eating their lunch. They chose a bench that was right in the middle of the park, hidden from prying eyes by evergreen pine bushes, with the noise from a leaf blower operated by a parks department worker offering perfect masking of their conversation.

Alex nodded in greeting to the parks department worker, whose name was Ricardo. Ricardo's brother-in-law was a low-level meta who was being hunted by the OHMR, until Alex had secured him and his family safe lodgings deep within the nooks and crannies of Gotham City through her Meta Underground Railroad.

When Ricardo saw Alex, he gave her a slight nod back in greeting, being careful not to look up from what he was doing…which was basically blowing around nonexistent leaves. When Alex called him earlier and asked if he could stop by the DA's Park and provide a sound muffler for her meeting with Marguerite and Jordan, Ricardo was only too happy to oblige. Alex had no idea if the OHMR were actually trying to listen in on her conversations, but she knew that Waller knew of her dealings with the Meta Underground Railroad, and so she still didn't want to take any chances.

When she walked up to the bench, Alex said, "Sorry I'm late. But things ran over in court today."

Jordan and Marguerite, who were both bundled up against the chill of the overcast day, just smiled up at her. "No problem," Jordan, who was a medical examiner, replied. "But I think it's starting to get a little chilly for us to be meeting out here…."

"Si," Marguerite agreed, as she took a sip of her piping hot tea. "Could we start meeting indoors next time?"

"The only problem is, wherever we meet next time, it must be thoroughly scoured for surveillance equipment beforehand," Jordan pointed out. "Do we have the ability to do so?"

"I have a friend who can help us in that regard," Alex said, as she sat down. She thought of John Munch, who had recently given her the private web site address of a group known as The Lone Gunmen. "He knows these guys who are experts in counter-surveillance. They can give us all the advice and equipment we need to make sure our next meeting isn't being overheard."

"For how much?" Marguerite blandly asked.

"Gratis," Alex replied.

Jordan nodded her head in approval. "I like gratis…free is always good."

"You'll be happy to hear that I've found new lodgings for future refugees," Marguerite told Alex. "There's a church over in the Ironview Section that is willing to offer us rooms in their basement. Whoever we place there will be securely hidden, and Father Consuela can be trusted completely."

"Marguerite even tells me there's enough room at the church to set up a clinic for the refugees," Jordan added. "Think about that, Alex! No more clandestine meetings just to treat somebody!"

"Yeah, that's great." Alex almost hated to break their spirited, industrious mood. But they had to know.

Jordan gave her a wary look. "What's wrong, Alex?"

Alex took a deep breath and informed them about the stakeout she was on last night with the Gotham City SVU. "We met the Gotham Slasher, and it turns out that he's a meta."

Jordan looked crestfallen, while Marguerite let out a string of curses under her breath in Spanish.

"He had super strenght," Alex continued, "and he was pretty fast, too. He ducked a full police cordon that Jim Gordon himself supervised. All right, so, who do we know within the Underground who has super strenght?"

"No, Alex…absolutely not!" Marguerite said resolutely. "I won't be a party to this!"

"Marguerite…" Alex began.

But Marguerite cut her off with a slash of her hand. "No! Look, I don't condone what the Gotham Slasher is doing, not by any means, but these people we are helping are coming here to Gotham City for sanctuary. Now you expect me to turn on them by treating them all like suspects? We'd be no better than the scum who're hunting them down!"

"Nobody said anything about turning on anybody," Alex told her. "We'll just conduct our own private investigation, that's all."

"And by doing so, we betray all of those who we've helped so far!" Marguerite said with a shake of her head.

"Better we investigate than the OHMR," Jordan shot back.

"Exactly," Alex said. "Hell, it's bad enough now that Waller's polluting the air by blaming the devastation in Metropolis all on Superman. But once word gets out that the Gotham Slasher is a meta, the OHMR will then be in Gotham City in full force."

"It's getting even worse," Jordan interjected. "What happened in Metropolis has spurred talk within congress about bringing back the Mutant Registration Act again. Things are already getting pretty heated for us right now, and thowing a meta serial killer into this mix will only make it explode."

"If the Gotham Slasher _is_ someone who we brought to Gotham City," Alex said, "then it's up to us to find out who it is and bring them to justice."

Marguerite abruptly stood up. "Then you conduct this witch hunt without my help. At least one of us must remain above this mess."

When Marguerite turned and walked away from them, Jordan started to get up to go after her. But Alex stopped her. "No, let her go."

"You think she has a point?"

"I know exactly how she feels about the situation," Alex said sadly. "Because I also can't help but feel like _I'm_ betraying all the metas we've helped by doing this."

"So what do we do?"

"What damned choice do we have, Jordan? If this Gotham Slasher bastard is hiding out within our ranks, then we have to find him and flush him out."

"Searching for a super-powered serial killer in the bowels of Gotham City all by ourselves?" Jordan said thoughtfully. "Sounds like a pretty tall order…"

"You getting squeamish about doing this?"

"Are you kidding?" Jordan grinned broadly. "This is the sort of crazy stuff that I live for! When do we start?"

**B&B**

Bane and Deanna had traveled to America aboard Varlis' private Lear jet, and Bane had spent the flight watching news footage of the Batman as he battled a large bat creature on the roof of a building in Gotham City. Bane had to admit that he was impressed. He had been wrong in thinking that Batman was nothing more than a common thug who wore a mask.

'His combat skills are impeccable,' Bane thought, as he watched the Dark Knight take on a much larger and more deadly opponent. Then he nodded as he watched Batman place what looked like a tracking device on the creature, just before it flew off. 'With great intelligence to match. Batman will be a most commendable enemy for me to defeat.'

The plane came in for a landing in a small airport just outside of Gotham City. Once it rolled inside a hanger, the engines were shut off and the door opened for them by the crew.

Bane noted that the plane's crew stared at him form time to time with a mixture of disgust and pity. His face, which was badly scarred from past prison knife fights, was unmasked. Realizing his error, he hesitated just before leaving the plane.

"What is it?" Deanna asked with concern.

Bane quickly sought out his private bag, retrieved his mask and put it on. When he leered at the stewardess with the fearsome mask on, she recoiled against the bulkhead in terror. That settled it for him. Bane decided right then and there that he would never again go outside without the mask on. It's better to be feared than pitied.

"Just engaging in a little theatricality," he assured Deanna, as he strode down the steps with her arm in arm.

Varlis stood waiting for them at the base of the steps with a broad smile. There were several large, imposing men standing behind him. "Welcome to America! I hope your trip was a pleasant one?"

Deanna shivered violently as she wrapped her coat collar tighter around her throat. "Jesus, it's freezing here!"

"We are both far from the jungles, my love," Bane informed her. "And good riddance to them." He turned to Varlis and asked, "Is everything set?"

"Just about," Varlis replied, as they all strode from the jet. "I've secured a base of operations for you in the Iron View district."

"What is this place?" Bane asked. "The Iron View district?"

"The industrial heart of Gotham City," Varlis answered. "But since all manufacturing jobs have gone overseas, it's now abandoned. That makes it the perfect hiding place for you and your team."

Bane thought back to the video he'd watched of the Batman placing a homing device on the Bat creature. "It will suffice for now. But we will soon change the location of our base of operations to another part of the city."

Varlis looked taken aback. "May I ask why?"

"Batman is a hunter, senor Varlis. And since you've stated that the Iron View section would be a perfect place for our base of operations, it stands to reason that Batman would also know that. It will be the first place he'll look for us after we make our move."

"Makes sense to me," a bald man with a goatee muttered.

"Bane, this is Mr. Braddock," Varlis introduced them. "He'll be your right hand man, as it were. You can meet the rest of the team once we're at the base."

Braddock's handshake was firm and steady. And despite the mild fear that Bane saw in Braddock's eyes, the man still looked hardy and tough. "Pleasure to meet you," Braddock said.

"The pleasure is all mine," Bane replied.

Braddock and the other men got into a large black SUV that followed them.

Bane got into the rear seat of a limo. Bane sat in the center of the seat flanked by Varlis and Deanna. Maria, Deles' former maid, sat in the seat opposite of them. This was the first time Bane had seen Maria since she had vanished some time ago, and she now sat with the wide-eyed, fearful look of a woman who knew what it was like to be hunted like an animal. Maria kept her gaze down at the floor of the limo the whole time she rode with them.

Soon, they left the suburbs and were in Gotham City itself. Bane had seen pictures of the place, but this was the first time he had had witnessed Gotham City's densely packed atmosphere of buildings and humanity for himself. Instantly, he understood how Batman could operate within this city, which had many streets where the entire sky was blocked out by either a train rail or building walkways.

'He hides within a place with many shadows,' Bane realized, 'only emerging when he needs to, and striking fear in his opponents.' As the realization struck him, Bane thoughtfully touched his mask. 'In that sense, the Batman uses theatricality just as much as I do.'

"So Bane, what do you think of Gotham City?" Varlis asked.

Bane just smiled broadly under his mask and said, "It will make good ground for the coming battle…one I look forward to immensely!"

**To Be continued...**


	5. Chapter 5

_My thanks to stargaze29, Robart, and ZabuzasGirl for their reviews. _

**Batman & Benson 8**

**Chapter Five**

Apokalips was a hellish, overbuilt world of nonstop buildings with smokestacks belching filth into the permanently overcast skies. There was no sign of nature anywhere to be seen here, with every inch of ground being covered by either a structure or concrete roadway. As bad as Gotham City was, with its insane urban development, it was still nowhere near as bad to J'onn as Apokolips. 'For even during the darkest day in Gotham City, there was still hope,' he thought. 'Unlike here….'

He strode with Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and Captain Marvel as they were being ushered into the grand reception hall of the imperial palace, which served as Darkseid's private residence.

The fearsome warlord himself sat hunched over on his gaudy throne with his face hidden behind his hand. He looked to be either in deep thought or pain. J'onn realized that it was both when Darkseid finally glanced up to receive them. One side of his face was badly slashed and bruised, and one of his arms was heavily bandaged. If his body held any signs of injuries, his blue and gray tunic hid them.

"Welcome heroes from Earth," Darkseid said, his deep voice sounding as if reverberating from within a vast mountain. J'onn noted a weariness to his actions that was hard to miss. "Did Superman defeat the Planet Slayer?"

"Planet Slayer?" Wonder Woman asked, puzzled.

"Yes, the creature who reigned havoc here on my beloved world," Darkseid responded. He sat up to a full regal bearing on his throne. Then he flinched suddenly, as if the movement had caused him pain. "He annihilated my armies, then fought me to a standstill, and were it not for the intervention of Superman, my very soul would have been his for the taking."

"So you didn't send Doomsday?" Captain Marvel asked.

Darkseid smiled wanly at that. "Doomsday? Is that what the Earthers call him? It is a name just as apt as any, I suppose. And to answer your query, Captain: no, I did not send that beast to Earth. Superman had been in the midst of battle with it here when, as you call him, Doomsday opened a Boom Tube. Am I correct in assuming that the Tube which Doomsday escaped through led directly back to Earth?"

"To Metropolis," Wonder Woman said grimly. "More than half the city was destroyed in the ensuing battle. And Superman was killed by the creature."

Darkseid stared at her in disbelief for a split second. "Superman is dead?"

"Y-Yes, he…." Wonder Woman's voice had caught with emotion, and she stopped speaking to glance uneasily at the floor.

J'onn quickly picked up the narrative for her. "The creature whom we call Doomsday killed the Man Of Steel in a pitched battle across Metropolis. When we responded to the scene, the creature escaped through a Boom Tube before we could engage him in combat."

Green Lantern stepped forward. "We thought it might have been you, recalling your assassin back here after a successful mission."

Darkseid slowly shook his head. He still appeared shaken at the fact that Superman was gone. "Nothing could be further from the truth, Lantern. Superman was our savior. The people of Apokolips owe him a great debt, and now that he is gone, our hearts shall be heavy with sorrow."

"You called this thing the Planet Slayer," Wonder Woman said. She appeared to have shaken off her grief. "If you weren't behind it, then who was? Who, or what, is this Planet Slayer?"

"It is said that he was born when the universe was first created, a myth which I do not believe in." Darkseid gazed at all of them steadily. "But he _is_ very old, and very powerful. There are tales of him slaughtering entire worlds centuries ago. But it was only recently that he had changed his tactics. Instead of slaughtering an entire world, the Planet Slayer now seeks out the most powerful warrior of its people and slays him in combat."

"For what purpose?" Captain Marvel asked.

Darkseid shook his head. "I do not know. There are just as many theories as there are myths about this monster. Perhaps he is the last standing warrior of a long-dead galactic empire who is now bored and merely does this for sport, who knows? Your guess is as good as mine."

Darkseid abruptly leaned forward. "But this I do know: the Boom Tube that brought him here originated on the planet Malabar. I was just about to send an expeditionary force to investigate Malabar, but I shall gladly stand down my troops so that you may proceed with your vengeance."

"We do not seek vengeance," Green Lantern said. "Only justice."

"Speak for yourself, Lantern," Wonder Woman curtly replied. "I, for one, would very dearly like to meet this vile creature in battle once more."

"Spoken like a true warrior, Wonder Woman," Darkseid said, with admiration.

But there was something that bothered J'onn. "How did Superman know that you were in trouble? Did you call him for help?"

"Darkseid requires help from no man!" he angrily said. Then he abruptly softened. "Although, Superman's help was still greatly appreciated when he offered it."

"So you didn't call him for help," Wonder Woman said thoughtfully.

"And thus the question remains," J'onn told her. "How did Superman know to come here?"

"Perhaps it was an accident," Captain Marvel surmised. "Perhaps Superman was on patrol when he noticed Darkseid and his people were in trouble."

"This is mere conjecture," Wonder Woman said. "We need to return to the JLA, get one of our ships, and get to Malabar, as soon as possible."

'Now we have a long interstellar trip ahead of us,' J'onn wearily thought. 'So much for my having dinner with Katie later tonight. I hope she understands.'

As they turned to leave, Darkseid said, "Wonder Woman, for what it is worth: I offer my sincere condolences for Superman. Long may his memory burn like the brightest star in the universe."

"Spare me your platitudes," the Amazonian Princess harshly said. "And mark my words: if we discover that you had _anything_ to do with this atrocity, I shall return and kill you myself, Darkseid."

They then left the throne room in chilly silence.

**B&B**

Bane regarded himself in the full-length mirror and gave a nod of approval. "I like it, very much."

Deanna stared critically at the new combat outfit that they had just put together for him. It was an all-black outfit, save for the triangular gold highlights that surrounded the eyepieces on his mask. Deanna really appreciated how the gold highlights around his eyes gave Bane's mask a more predator-like appearance.

And since he would be working in the chilly northern climate of Gotham City, Bane no longer wore his usual tank top. Instead, he was clad in a long-sleeved tunic, over which he wore a new chest piece that was made from a special reinforced bulletproof vest that could conceivably stop a shoulder-launched missile. Not that Deanna was planning on her lover taking on a missile, but it was always good to plan for all possible threats.

That much overprotection was needed, Deanna knew, because this new chest piece that Bane wore now contained his personal Venom dispenser. No more did Bane have to be at the mercy of whoever held his Venom for him. Now, if Bane needed more Venom, he could inject himself with it whenever and wherever he needed it. Bane finished off the new outfit by slipping on a pair of black gloves.

"How's the communications system?" Deanna asked.

Bane glanced at Braddock, who stood with them, and said, "Let's test it right now, shall we?"  
Braddock nodded as he grabbed an earpiece and left the room. After a few seconds, Deanna heard him come in loud and clear over her own earpiece. "One, two, three, testing. You reading me, Bane? Deanna?"

"Yes, I hear you," Deanna confirmed.

"I read you," Bane said. "How are _we_ coming in?"

"Loud and clear," Braddock told them over their coms.

"The very best equipment money can buy," Deanna told her lover. "I just hope Varlis doesn't bankrupt himself over this."

"Vengeance makes men do extraordinary things," Bane said. "But, as long as Varlis pays us in the end, we can only do what he's paying us for. No need to worry about things that are beyond our control." He reached out and gently caressed her face. "Go back to the apartment and wait for me there."

Deanna stared at him, alarmed. "You're going after the Batman tonight?"

"The hunt waits for no man," he told her. "I shall see you when I see you."

Deanna, who had been looking forward to a night of lovemaking with Bane before the hunt started in earnest, found herself feeling immensely jealous of the Batman, of all people. "I really don't understand why you have to rush things!" she said, annoyed. "I realize we're getting a lot of money for this job, but if you just go charging in like this, you could…."

Bane reached over to hug her gently with one muscular arm. "Do not fret, my beloved. Gotham City is new territory for me, and before I begin the hunt proper, I must get a feel for the ground, the lay of the land. Think of this as being a simple recon mission, nothing more."

That made feel better. "Be careful with the Venom," she warned, as they walked out of the room. "You're not used to just injecting yourself with it whenever you needed it, so it may be a bit overwhelming at first. Just give yourself little doses for now, and sparingly."

"I shall heed your advice," he gently promised her.

"Just be careful," she whispered, as they embraced tightly. "I've heard so many scary things about Batman, as well as Gotham City."

"Gotham City is just another jungle, waiting for me to tame it, nothing more," he assured her. "And Batman is nothing but a man. An extraordinary man, perhaps, but still just a man. I shall see you before you know it, my beloved."

He pushed open the doors and strolled into the recreation room, where Braddock stood speaking with the other men. "We going someplace?" Braddock asked, surprised.

"For a night on the town," Bane replied. "Who's with me?"

"Count me in," Mo said, as he and the others got up from where they were watching TV on the sofa. "At night, Gotham's a regular party town, you know!"

Deanna stood watching the doors long after Bane and his crew had left. A part of her had been hoping to delay this moment for as long as possible; she had been hoping to get Bane alone, back at the apartment, and try and convince him to just leave with her…just run off to someplace where they could be alone together, forever. But that chance had been denied her. And now Deanna knew that the moment Bane walked out that door, that this terrible mission had begun in earnest.

And, for the life of her, Deanna had no idea how it would end. Now matter how optimistic she tried to be, a part of her was fearful of the outcome of this mission, one from which no real good could possibly come.

Filled with dark despair, Deanna quietly left the base and went back to the apartment that she shared with Bane…where she would wait, as well as hope, in anxious silence.

**B&B**

Harvey Bullock and Renee Montoya were quickly ushered into Gordon's office once they stepped out of the elevator. "Whatever this is, it must be really important," Renee whispered to her long-time partner. "We're being led straight in this time. No waiting."

"Gordon must have found out about all those paper clips you stole from the office supplies," Harvey said with a smirk. "I knew that wuz gonna come back to haunt ya, Montoya."

"How can you get in trouble for stealing paper clips, Harvey?" Renee asked. "I mean, seriously?"

They were still jokingly arguing when they stepped into Gordon's office. But once they both caught sight of the livid look on Gordon's face, they immediately ceased their banter.

"Close the door," Gordon snapped at them. "And sit down."

Harvey exchanged a wary look with Renee as he shut the door to Gordon's office. Then they sat down in chairs before Gordon's massive desk while the Commissioner angrily paced back and forth in front of them. Then, as if getting his bearings, Gordon stopped long enough to take a deep breath. "Braddock, and the whole Manbat gang have just been cut loose from jail."

Now Harvey understood why his boss was so mad…because, upon hearing this little bit of news, he now felt like punching the wall himself. "_What?!_"

"My God, sir, that's impossible!" Renee said with disbelief. "D.A. Dawes had an airtight case against them!"

"She did," Gordon said. "But the feds came in and did an end-run around Rachel. Braddock and his boys were all released. The same bastards who held my only daughter captive as a goddamned brood mare are now all walking the streets as free men!"

Renee shook her head. "It doesn't make sense. What would the feds have to gain by releasing these guys?"

"Yeah, that ain't standard procedure for black ops guys. Hired muscle like this crew are usually disposable," Harvey said. "Once they get pinched, they're forgotten about by their bosses."

"That's what I want you two to find out," Gordon said. "I want to know who, exactly, arranged for Braddock and the others to be released. And I want to know where they are, now. I want this bunch placed under surveillance. Understood?"

"Um, sir, I was due to report to the SVU for undercover decoy duty for the Gotham Slasher case," Renee said.

"You're both on special assignment starting right now, working solely on this job," Gordon told her. He was so angry he clenched his hands into fists. "These sons of bitches had my little girl tied down to a gurney, clad in nothing but a damned hospital gown, so she could be raped by one of those bat monsters! If they thought that I was going to just forget about what they did to Barbara and let them waltz away, they are seriously mistaken."

"Understood, sir," Renee said with a firm nod. "It will be our extreme pleasure to take this assignment on."

"Yeah, don't worry Commish," Harvey assured him. "No matter where these cockroaches hide, we'll find them."

**B&B**

Adie McGinnis was a lean young woman with a pretty face that was hidden behind a tangle of her reddish hair. When she arrived at the SVU bullpen, escorted by Mike and Andrea, and an elderly woman, she instantly started looking around. As she searched for Kelsey, Adie pulled her unruly hair back into a pony tail and tied it off with a rubber band.

Olivia stood with a nervous Kelsey by the door of her office. Jonah was sacked out inside on the sofa, and Olivia had closed the door and told Linda to divert all of her calls in order to let the little guy sleep.

It wasn't hard to notice the anxious look on the little girl's face, and Olivia realized that, instead of looking forward to seeing her mother, Kelsey seemed afraid.

Olivia bent down before Kelsey and asked, "Do you want to see your mom?"

"Yeah," Kelsey said. She nervously wrung her hands. "But she might not want to see me…."

"What makes you say that? Look, see?" Olivia gestured at Adie. "She's looking around for you."

"She might get mad at all the trouble I got into," Kelsey told Olivia in a conspiratorial whisper.

"I think she will be more happy to see that you're alive and well," Olivia told her. She glanced up and saw that Adie had seen them, and had come over. Yet Adie, perhaps sensing Kelsey's reluctance to see her, had stopped short of running over to them.

Olivia stood up, took Kelsey's hand and led her over to her mother. "Here she is," Olivia said to Adie, "all safe and sound."

"Thank the sweet lord Jesus Christ!" Adie cried, as she knelt down and hugged her daughter tightly.

Kelsey pulled back long enough to warily gaze down at her mother. "You're not mad?"

"Not mad? Baby, I'm ecstatic!" She hugged the little girl once more, and this time, a relieved Kelsey returned the hug in full force.

"We have a room for you guys to get together and catch up," Olivia told them. "You could enjoy some privacy. I'm Inspector Olivia Benson, by the way."

"Adie McGinnis," she said, as she pumped Olivia's hand with gratitude. She nodded at the old woman and added, "This is my mom, Katherine. You know, Inspector, I begged and pleaded with the Lord God Jesus Christ Almighty to make my little baby safe, and I see that He has responded to my wishes by sending you and your wonderful people. Praise Him, and bless you!"

Olivia led them to the children's interview room, which was decorated with cheery, kid-sized furniture and toys. This was the place where they interviewed child victims of crimes, and Olivia had seen to it that it was made to be as safe and loving an area as possible.

She and Andrea watched through the two-way glass as Adie and Kelsey knelt down on the carpeting and prayed their thanks to Jesus. Adie had even gestured for Mike to join them, but he just politely declined her offer off as he remained on guard by the door. Katherine just took a seat in one of the adult-sized chairs and watched them with a glowing smile.

"Didn't know she and Jesus were such good friends," Olivia mentioned to Andrea. "Adie didn't sound very religious when I spoke with her on the phone earlier today."

"According to her social worker back home, this born-again fanaticism is a new thing for Adie," Andrea said. "Adie claims that her close, personal relationship with Jesus is what finally got her to stop taking crystal meth."

"Crystal meth?!" Olivia said, alarmed. "How long has she been clean?"

"Almost six months, now," Andrea replied. "Her court-ordered drug tests back her up. She's been clean and sober all along. Kelsey was taken away from her because of her addiction. She had been staying with her grandmother."

"Kelsey spoke of her mother not wanting her around," Olivia said. "I take it that attitude has now changed, as well?"

"Adie claims she never said any such thing." Andrea regarded a handheld notebook. "She had been dating a Jarrett Kinsman, whom _she_ claims was the one who told Kelsey that she wasn't wanted. This was what made Kelsey run away from home. When Adie found out what Kinsman did, she dumped him."

"She kicked him out of the house?"

"She did one better," Andrea said. "Kinsman had several outstanding warrants. Adie turned him over to the cops."

"Bravo," Olivia said, impressed. "Score one for Adie. Will there be enough room at the safe house for mom and grandma?"

"Plenty. In fact, we'll be taking them over there, now." Andrea slipped her notebook back into her purse. "We have any idea how long the protection will last, Inspector?"

"Until we know that Kelsey is under no further threat from this Red Queen broad…whoever, or whatever, the hell she is."

"Still no movement on that front, I take it?"

"No," Olivia wearily said, as they left the observation room. "Arkham has Jarvis Tetch all doped up…for his own good, they say. But that makes it hard for us to get in and do further interviews. The warehouse he was using as his hideout had been combed over three times by the CSU, and there's no evidence left behind as to who this Red Queen could be."

When they entered the bullpen, they saw Katie sitting petulantly at her desk, all by herself.

"Katie's been working by herself lately, " Andrea said. "Where's John? Out sick?"

"On special assignment," Olivia lied. But then she realized that what she had just said wasn't really a lie, for J'onn was indeed off on a special assignment, only with the Justice League. "Need to know, Andrea, sorry."

Andrea just nodded in understanding. "Say no more." She glanced over when Mike emerged with Kelsey and her mother and grandmother. "Are we ready to head over to the safe house?"

"Ready as we'll ever be," Mike said. "We've got the first shift. Katie, you joining us later?"

"I might as well come with you right now," Katie said, as she got up from her desk. "Let's make it a party."

"Watch this one," Olivia said, as she jokingly gestured at Kelsey. "She's a real party animal!"

Everybody laughed as Kelsey's face turned a beet red as she regarded Olivia with horror. "Inspector! I mean, really!"

Just as they left, Olivia heard distant crying, which forced her to promptly ran back over to her office, where the door was wide open. Linda was inside, soothing the ruffled feathers of a cranky Jonah. Once the little boy saw Olivia, he held out his arms for her.

"Oh, honey, I'm so sorry!" Olivia said, as she picked him up in her arms. "Thanks so much, Linda. Why don't you head home? I'll see you on Monday."

"You want me to call social services for the boy, first?" Linda offered.

Olivia glanced down at Jonah, who just gazed back in such a loving manner at her that it simply melted her heart. Kelsey may have been still under police protection, but she was at least spending the night with her mother and grandmother; no way would Olivia just dump this little guy into the hands of strangers. "No, that's ok, Linda. I've got him."

Linda smiled at that. "Have a good weekend, Inspector."

"You too."

When they were alone in the entire bullpen, Olivia cuddled Jonah close to her and muttered, "You're coming to Wayne Manor with me, kiddo."

"Wayne Manor?" the boy asked, sounding surprised. "What's that?"

Olivia just smiled at him. "You'll see! Let's go get Alex, first."

**B&B**

Barbara had just settled in for a night of manning the Batcomputer in the Batcave. Olivia and Alex were finally coming over later, and Barbara was really looking forward to seeing them again. Alfred had informed her that Liv and Alex would be bringing over a friend, but each time Barbara tried to coax an answer out of him as to who this "friend" might be, the elderly butler just smiled cryptically smiled at her and said, "You shall see."

When Bruce arrived in the Batcave, he asked, "Are you ready to leave?"

That surprised Barbara, who thought she had pulled another night of Oracle duty. "I'm going out with you?"

Bruce nodded. "We've got a special assignment. We're headed to Metropolis; specifically, to Clark's apartment."

Barbara felt a sharp stab of renewed grief just at the mere mention of the name of Superman's alter-ego. Still, she shoved these feelings aside, grateful to be called into duty as Batgirl once more. This would be her first real time back out as Batgirl since she had been abducted, and Barbara was eager to get back in action.

After changing into her second generation Batgirl suit, which was equipped with an impressive communications array in the cowl, as well as the latest grapple gun tech, she met Batman outside of the changing rooms.

"How does it fit?" he asked, referring to her outfit.

"Great," Batgirl replied. "Fits comfortably."

"Lucius outdid himself, as usual," Batman said, as they walked up to the Prowler's hanger. "Especially with the blocker technology."

Batgirl instinctively glanced down at the blocker disc, which created an energy field that blocked all surveillance equipment in a localized area, and realized that she could not find it. "Hey, where's my disc?"

"The blocker tech is no longer contained within a disc," Batman replied, as he opened the Prowler canopy. "That was what Lucius changed. The blocker tech is now contained within your utility belt. Just press the bat emblem on your belt buckle to turn it on."

"That is so cool!" Batgirl marveled. She climbed into the Prowler and sat in her usual seat, right behind Batman.

When the Dark Knight stared over his shoulder at her expectantly, Batgirl quickly realized that he had wanted her to sit beside him in the co-pilot's seat. She happily did so, buckling herself into Robin's old seat as Batman did a quick preflight check, then awoke the Prowler's engines.

The hanger's roof slid open, and the Prowler silently lifted off into the velvety blackness of night. Batgirl watched carefully as Batman expertly piloted the Prowler into the direction of Metropolis.

Batman noted her interest, and asked, "You interested in piloting this bird someday?"

"I can't even drive a car, yet!" Batgirl muttered, with a shake of her head.

Batman tapped a specific button on the console. Batgirl saw the word under the button read "home".

"You _can_ fly the Prowler back to the Batcave, just by pressing that button," he told her. "It sets off the automatic pilot, which is auto-locked into flying straight home, to the Batcave. But before you press that button, make sure that everybody who wants to go home is safely ensconced in the Prowler. Because, once you hit that button, this bird is going straight home, with no stops along the way."

"Another one of Lucius' upgrades?"

"One that I asked for," Batman said. "Just in case I was ever too debilitated to fly, I could still get home. You can use it, as well. Just in case."

Batgirl could never imagine something like that ever happening to Batman. But then again, she never imagined that Superman could die, either. Her dark thought about the Man Of Steel brought her back to a question that had been bugging her all day. "Where is he? Superman?" she asked softly. "His body, I mean…."

"The Justice League satellite," Batman solemnly answered. "Wonder Woman and Green Lantern thought it was the safest place for now, and I concur with their decision."

"May I ask why are we going to Clark's apartment?"

"You may _always_ ask," he told gently her. "Whatever question you want, anytime. J'onn, the Martian Manhunter, called me earlier. He had just gotten back with the others from Apokolips. It turns out that Darkseid didn't send Doomsday after all. Doomsday originally attacked Darkseid's home planet, until Superman intervened. But since Darkseid had never sent a call for help, the big mystery is, how did Superman know he was under attack? That's what we're going to try and find out in Clark's apartment."

"Wouldn't it be weird if we unlocked the whole mystery just by finding a simple clue there?" Batgirl said.

"Stranger things have happened, Batgirl."

**B&B**

Dick ran to the terrace and peered over the railing. He wasn't sure, but he thought he'd heard screaming from down below in the streets. The power was still out in this section of the city, as it was throughout Metropolis, so it was hard for him to see what was going on in the streets below.

He ran to the bedroom that he shared with Chloe and retrieved his Robin outfit from its hidden spot in the closet and quickly suited up. Chloe, seeing him in the hallway, stood watching anxiously. "What is it?" she asked.

"Don't know," Dick replied, as he put his mask on. "It might be nothing. But I thought I heard screaming in the streets just now."

When he went back to the terrace, this time fully dressed as Robin, Lana was already there. She peered over the railing with a nervous look on her face. "Sounds like somebody's getting killed down there!"

"You see where they are?" Chloe asked.

Lana shook her head. "It's too dark!"

Robin could hear the screaming once more, and this time, he switched on the night vision that was built into his mask.

'There they are,' he thought, once he saw the mass of humanity on the sidewalk, right in front of their building. It looked like a gang of hoodlums were stalking a lone woman. Robin pulled out his grapple gun and secured the grapple right around the railing. Then he climbed over the railing, but not before Chloe stopped him.

"Robin, please, be careful," she said.

He caressed the side of her face. "I'm just gonna drop in and say hi, that's all. Hold the fort for me."

He released the trigger on the grapple gun, which caused him to rappel down the side of the building. Yet just as he was one story above the fracas, the grapple gun lit up red on the side, which indicated that had run out of rope.

'Looks like Chloe and Lana's building is just too darn tall,' he thought, with a glance down at the thugs. They had the woman, who was still screaming, on the ground as they leered over her in a not very pleasant manner.

Once Robin had his aim down pat, he kicked away from the side of the building, then released his grip on the grapple gun, and did a perfect somersault in the air. He landed right where he'd wanted: right on top of the biggest thug in the gang. He rolled off the thug, who now lay sprawled on the ground, then came up in a full combat stance in front of the girl.

The remaining thugs looked all big and burly, and if they were intimidated by the sight of Robin suddenly appearing in their midst, they didn't show it.

'If your opponent isn't scared,' Robin thought, remembering something that the Batman had once said, 'then give him a good reason to be!'

Robin went on the offensive, kicking the legs out from under the first thug while slamming his fist deep into the stomach of a second. A third thug tried to grab him from behind, but Robin ducked down and brought his knee up into the man's crotch.

When Robin paused long enough to see what the score was, he was startled to see one of the remaining thugs had a large handgun pointed at right at him. The thug just smiled smugly. "You should have stayed in Gotham, you little punk…."

Just when Robin thought he was about to test just how bulletproof this new second-gen combat suit was, the thug was abruptly blasted to the ground by a bolt of what looked like lightning. These came from the hands of an orange-skinned young woman with long, flame-red hair and glowing emerald eyes who hovered in the hair above Robin.

"Thanks for the help," Robin told her, genuinely grateful.

When she gestured at something, Robin turned to see two more thugs were standing there. But before they could even attack, the thugs were tackled to the ground by a large African-American man who was partially covered in armor.

"You know, I just don't get this," a thin, green-skin boy with pointed ears said as he hunched on the ground. "They see their buddies get mopped all over the street, and yet they _still _hang around…what, do they actually think they might still have a chance to turn the tide of the fight?!"

"False bravado is rarely rewarded," a gray-skinned young woman in a dark blue outfit, complete with a hood and cloak, solemnly intoned.

"Stay away from me!" the woman whom Robin had originally come down to rescue now cried at them. "All of you freaks just stay away!"

"Easy, ma'am," Robin said, as he held up his hands. "You've just been through a shock, and…."

"It's not enough that you people have destroyed this city!" the woman screamed, as she got to her feet. "But now you're lording it over the rubble, too! You damned freaks!"

"Now _that's_ gratitude for you," the green-skinned boy muttered, as they watched the woman as she quickly ran into the very same condo that Chloe and Lana lived in.

"Don't let her attitude get you down," Robin told the others. "I, for one, am very grateful for your help, tonight. I'm Robin, by the way."

"Like _you_ need an introduction," the African-American man said with a chuckle. He shook Robin's hand. "My handle's Cyborg." He gestured at the green-skinned boy and added, "The little guy's Beast Boy."

"Little?" Beast Boy repeated, looking wounded. He suddenly sprouted up to several feet taller than all of them. "I'm a big guy when I need to be."

"I am Raven," the gray-skinned girl introduced herself. She nodded to the other girl who fired the lightning bolts from her hands. "And that is Starfire."

"Um, hi," Starfire said shyly.

"You guys part of the X-Men?" Robin asked.

"Bite your tongue!" Beast Boy said angrily. He had reverted to his normal size. "We're independent operators."

"The fact of the matter is, we've only just met each other a few hours ago," Raven told Robin. "We all arrived here in Metroplis in an attempt to see how we could help."

"And we never thought we'd meet up with a real hero," Cyborg said with admiration.

Robin was taken aback when he realized Cyborg had meant him. "Me? Oh, no, I'm just another dude, just trying to help, like you guys."

"Humble, ain't he?" Beast Boy asked the others.

"Aside from the wild stuff that you deal with on a nightly basis with The Batman," Starfire spoke up, "you were also part of the team that took down Cadmus. They would have come after me eventually, were it not for you."

"Cadmus would have come after all of us," Cyborg said.

"But you helped stop them," Starfire said, with a mixture of awe and gratitude. "So if anybody deserves to be called a hero, Robin, it's you."

"Aw, isn't that cute?" Beast Boy said with a grin. "Starfire's got a crush on Robin!"

They were interrupted by a large explosion that came from down the street.

"What just blew up?" Cyborg asked.

"You guys _did_ say you were here to help out, right?" Robin told them. "So let's go find out."

Raven grabbed Robin's hand and then Beast Boy's. "Everyone link up."

"Watch this," Cyborg said, smiling. He grabbed Starfire's hand as she grabbed Beast Boy's free hand. "This is really cool!"

"_Azarath Metrion Zinthos," _Raven intoned.

And then Robin abruptly found himself standing several blocks down the street, right in front of the crater where the explosion had blown up. He and the others had just been teleported several blocks within the blink of an eye.

"Whoa," he said, impressed. "That _is_ cool!"

As the team split up to deal with the new crisis, Robin heard a familiar voice in his comm. "Where are you?" Chloe asked, sounding worried. "I came downstairs, and I thought I saw you talking with some people, until you just…disappeared!"

"It's ok, I just met some really cool metas, and one of them teleported us down to where this explosion just went off," Robin replied, as he ran to join the team, who stood waiting for him. "Would you mind calling the cops about the bunch we left in front of your building?"

"Already did so," Chloe replied. "I'll wait up for you."

"You don't have to, if you don't want to," Robin told her. "You can go to sleep early, if you want."

"I can't sleep," Chloe admitted, her voice trembling. "I can only get a good sleep lately when you're by my side."

"I'll see you later then," Robin said softly. He was touched at what she had told him. "We'll go to sleep together."

"Be careful."

"Will do," Robin said, just before he switched off.

Then he dove into action alongside his new friends against the latest problem that a beleaguered Metropolis faced this evening.

**B&B**

Braddock drove the massive SVU through the streets of Gotham City, taking furtive glances at Bane, who sat beside him in the passenger seat. The car had tinted windows, so nobody could see the imposing masked man seated in front. Braddock noted that Bane very carefully stared at the nightlife that flowed all around them; it seemed as if he was silently taking down every detail that he saw and mentally filing it away.

Braddock was starting to see what Varlis saw in this guy. 'He's more than just a big bruiser,' Braddock thought. 'He's a thinker; he plots, he plans…which can only be good news for us.'

Bane pointed at a darkened side street. "Pull down there. And stop in front of the first building. That closed store."

Braddock did so, pulling the SUV next to an abandoned store that was all boarded up.

"Why are we stopping?" Mo asked. He was cramed in the back with the rest of the team.

"I need to do something," Bane replied.

And with that, he was out of the SUV in a flash. Braddock was stunned; he had personally never seen a man move as fast as Bane did. He was already running across the parking lot, towards a van that was parked in front of the closed store.

"What the hell…?" Kruse asked in disbelief. "What in God's name is the Masked Marvel doing, now?"

"I don't know. But since we're all being very well paid to follow him," Braddock said, as he opened his door, "then I suggest we do just that: follow him."

They disembarked from the SUV and ran across the parking lot. When they arrived at the van, Braddock was stunned to see Bane had killed the three men who were inside. He effortlessly snapped the neck of the last man, then tossed the body aside as if it were so much garbage. Bane peered into the van, which reeked of gasoline, and said, "This is perfect."

"Perfect for what?" Mo asked. "Why'd you kill these guys for? Who were they?"

"Arsonists," Bane replied. "And I killed them because they were in my way."

"You saw these guys on this darkened street all the way from the main drag?" Braddock said, impressed.

Bane tapped the goggle portion of his mask. "Night vision." He grabbed a one gallon plastic can filled with gas. "Someone drive the van through the front doors. We'll blow it on my mark."

"If you're gonna blow the place, then why not just let these guys do it?" Kruse wanted to know.

"Because, I want to send a message to the Batman," Bane said. "And this will be the best way to do it." He turned his head and stared at the men. "Any more questions?"

"Jugsy, drive the van through the front doors," Braddock ordered. "Don't blow it until you get the word."

"Just hope it don't blow all by itself," Jugsy said, as he waved his hand in front of his face. "The damn thing reeks of gas!"

"Bring the bodies over here," Bane ordered, as he walked over to the center of the parking lot. "Lay them head to foot, in a perfect line."

Braddock didn't have to bark any orders this time; the rest of the boys carried the dead arsonists over to where Bane had indicated and laid them out just as he wanted.

Bane then began doing something odd. He spilled gasoline all over the black asphalt of the parking lot, just above the bodies of the dead arsonists. But then Braddock realized something: Bane wasn't just spilling the gasoline, he was writing something with it.

'He's writing a message with gas,' Braddock thought.

"Batman's battleground is just as much psychological as it is physical," Bane said, as he finished off his message with a flourish. "He psyches out his opponents, first. And, if I am to engage him in combat, then I must use the same tactics against him."

Bane nodded at the store. "Blow it, now."

Jugsy and Mo did the honors. Once they crashed the van through the glass doors of the store, they got out and waited beside it until they got the 'ok' from Bane. Mo lit a flare, which he got from inside the van, and tossed it into the vehicle. Then he and Jugsy both ran for their lives as the van went up in a major fireball, taking the abandoned store with it.

In the blaze from the store, Bane turned to Kruse and said, "A match, if you would?"

Kruse lit up the message that Bane had written in gas with his lighter. Bane had actually wrote it in script, linking the words all altogether so that they would all go up at once.

Once back in the SUV, they quickly drove away from the inferno.

"The message is delivered," Bane said, sounding pleased. "And the hunt now begins in earnest."

**B&B**

Batman was exhausted.

As they flew back home to Gotham City from Metropolis, the Dark Knight figured he would do one good sweep of the city before calling it an early night. He and Batgirl had turned up nothing in their search of Clark's apartment…nothing but bad memories of a deceased man who was a good, close friend to the both of them. As hard as he tried to remain objective and stay focused on the investigation, Batman just couldn't avoid the deep loss he'd felt just by being in Clark's apartment.

They couldn't find anything there that told how Clark knew of Darkseid's troubles with Doomsday. Batman relayed his findings, or his lack of findings, to the JLA, and he and Batgirl quickly left Metropolis.

Yet no sooner did they reenter the familiar airspace of Gotham City in the Prowler than did Batman see another familiar sight in the night sky: the Batsignal.

"Uh-oh," Batgirl said, as she sat up in her chair next to him. "Looks like we've got trouble at home…."

"I'll swing by Police Headquarters and see what Jim wants," Batman said. He gazed at Batgirl. "You might want to stay in the Prowler."

She slid down in her seat with relief. "Um, yeah, I think that might be a good idea."

Batman placed the Prowler in hover mode some two stories below the roof of Police Headquarters. When he arrived on the roof via grapple gun, Batman saw his old friend standing by the Batsignal, gazing up with a hopeful look in the night sky.

"Evening, Jim," he called out.

Gordon was momentarily startled before he composed himself. "I'm glad you answered me this time. I got something you'd really should see."

He presented Batman with a series of pictures, crime scene photos that were taken at what looked like a fire. "This was a closed down store," Gordon told him. "The old Hildy Shoe Store over on Downey Street."

"I know the location," Batman confirmed. "Was it arson?"

"Yes, but…well, have you seen the final picture, yet? That's mainly the reason why I called you."

Batman pulled the final photo out from the stack and was promptly taken aback at what he saw. It was a series of words, carefully written out in script form, probably in gasoline, and then set ablaze across the empty pavement of the parking lot in front of the store. Below the message were the bodies of three dead men, all laid out in a single line, as if arranged in a morbid underline of the fiery message.

_I am coming for you, Batman_, the fiery words read. And, at the bottom, was signed a single name: _Bane_.

**To Be Continued...**


	6. Chapter 6

_My thanks to stargaze29 for the review. I'd also like to thank those of you who've favored either me, or this story._

**Batman & Benson**

**Chapter Six**

_I am coming for you, Batman_…_Bane_.

Bruce stared at the words on the main screen of the Batcomputer. He had scanned the crime scene photos that Gordon had given him onto the computer so he could better analyze it. He sat still clad in his Batsuit, but with the cowl and cape removed.

The bodies of the three men that lay at the bottom of the message were all known criminals, with records as long as his arm. There had been a series of arson attacks throughout Gotham City lately, with the targets being old and abandoned buildings that didn't have working security cameras. With Firebug safely locked away, Bruce had suspected it might be the work of professional arsonists who torched these buildings for a price.

'And here they are,' Bruce thought, as he grimly stared at the bodies of the men who lay on the cold pavement of the parking lot. 'One problem solved…even if it was an extremely harsh form of justice for these guys. And now another problem rears its ugly head.'

Bruce stared once more at the message, written in gasoline and lit on fire. Was this Bane working with these guys, and had a falling out with them? No, that didn't feel right. He got the feeling that the arsonists might have been going about their usual destructive work when Bane came across them, and killed them.

'Hell of a way to just send a message,' he thought. But then he considered the fact that the fiery words themselves weren't the only message that Bane was sending here. Bruce stared at the dead men, and realized that by killing these guys just to write his message to the Batman, Bane also sent a second, not so subtle message: I am a tough bastard who will do whatever it takes.

"And he's coming for the Batman," Bruce muttered.

He looked up the name Bane in the usual criminal databases, but it wasn't until he hit the DEA files in the Batcomputer that Bruce scored a hit. Bane was the name of a lethal hit man from South America. He was known for such savagery in his killings, ripping out the hearts of his victims, that he had acquired a fearsome reputation. Many people in the drug underworld down there even thought he was some kind of a mythical monster, such as a werewolf.

Bruce sat back in his chair and slowly shook his head. The parallels between Bane and the Dark Knight were so close it was a little uncomfortable for him. 'This guy sounds like a dark version of the Batman,' he realized. 'And if he's really here in Gotham City, and if he's half as bad as I fear he is, then the sooner I take him down, the better.'

He moved all the Bane research to a secondary screen, then opened a new search. This time, Bruce hacked into the Gotham City Power & Light records. Specifically, he carefully searched the power grid within the Iron View Section. The devastated manufacturing section of the city had become such a popular hideout for criminals lately that it spurred Bruce into devising a new plan to find them. And this was the first time he was able to put this plan into action. Since the Iron View section was largely abandoned, any pull on the power supply should indicate an illegal presence within the area…a presence that most likely would be the hideout for Bane.

Bruce smiled when he saw a large draw on power in not one, but three separate locations within the Iron View section. And when he checked these locations against the Power & Light records, he saw that they all were either abandoned warehouses, or factories. It would take some checking, but Bane should be at one of these locations, at least.

'Or perhaps he's using all three,' Bruce thought. 'Only one way to find out….'

He got out of the chair and was about to call Barbra, who was busy at the work bench resetting their grapple guns, when Bruce stopped short at the sight of Rachel, who stood there with a fearful look on her face. He didn't even know she had already came home from work. Bruce immediately felt guilty when he saw Rachel, because he had originally intended to come home early tonight and talk with her. But now here he was, running out once again without even having said a word to her. There were times, like this, when Bruce truly hated this city, with its persistent problems.

"Who is Bane?" Rachel asked. Her face looked ashen.

"Another problem," he replied in his best, confident tone. "One that I'm hoping to shut down right now."

Rachel gestured at the Batcomputer. "He's sending a message like this? That he's coming for the Batman? Who does he think he is, a super villain?"

"Either that, or he's a little too big for his britches…either way, I'm sweeping him off the streets tonight." He tried to sound as if it were no big deal, because he didn't want to worry her any more than she already was.

But Rachel saw right through his bravado. "You know more about him than you're telling me. Who is he, Bruce?"

Confronted with the truth, Bruce had no choice. He quietly told her everything he knew about Bane. As he spoke, Bruce saw Barbara slowly get up from the work bench and come closer as she listened to him. She was still clad in her Batgirl outfit, sans the cape and cowl.

"I may have a lead on where he's hiding out," Bruce told Rachel. "If I hit him, right away, I can take him down without him killing any more people in Gotham City."

When she heard this, Barbara instinctively picked up her cape and put it on in a great, swooping motion.

Rachel caught this out of the corner of her eye and let out a horrified scream as she clung to Bruce for safety.

"Easy, easy," Bruce soothed her.

"Oh, jeez," Rachel said, with a mixture of relief and disgust, when she saw it had only been Barbara. Bruce knew that she was disgusted at herself for having flown off the handle so badly. "Oh, boy…."

For her part, Barbara had quickly come over and apologized. "Rachel, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to scare you!"

"No, it's nothing," Rachel said, as she gave Barbara a gentle squeeze on the shoulder. "I've been a little jittery lately, that's all. You two should get going, and please be careful."

"Barbara, I may have a lead on where Bane might be in the Iron View Section," Bruce said. "Would you please get the exact addresses off the Batcomputer, and then meet me in the Prowler hanger?"

"Sure," she said, eager to leave them in private.

Bruce just gazed at Rachel with concern as she stared back at him with a puzzled look. "What?" she asked in a confrontational manner. "I told you, I've been a little jittery lately, that's all."

"Now _you're_ the one who's not being truthful, Rachel. I know you haven't been sleeping well. You slept fitfully all night last night, suffering with bad nightmares. Even Barbara has noticed that you've been jumping at shadows, just like you have now. If you refuse to…."

"I keep seeing him," Rachel said. Her voice was hoarse as she stared at the floor. "I keep seeing Clayface everywhere! The nightmares are bad enough, but I now see him all day long, as well. It's like he's haunting me."

"Clayface is dead, Rachel."

"I know that! I mean, I _should_ know it. But I keep seeing the bastard, nevertheless. I thought I could get a handle on it, Bruce. But it's getting out of hand."

He hugged her then, and Rachel let out a relieved sigh as she lay her head against his shoulder. "I hate this," Rachel muttered dismally against him. "I hate being weak."

"You're not weak, Rachel. You've been a great source of strength for a lot of people, including me, " Bruce told her. "Look, I'll cancel the mission and stay home with you tonight. You need me."

Rachel shook her head as she pulled away from him. "No, you go. I'll be fine. You're right, I do need you. But tonight's Friday, I can stay up for you, and we'll talk when you get back. You go and find this Bane, Bruce; stop him before he becomes somebody else's nightmare."

As much as he wanted to scrap the mission and stay here with her, Bruce had to admit that Rachel was right. If Bane indeed turned out to be a heavy hitter, then now was the time to stop him.

"Very well," Bruce told her, as he put on his cape and cowl. "But if you're asleep when I get back, I'm waking you."

Rachel smiled at him. "I'm holding you to that promise, mister."

Batman smirked back at her over his shoulder. Rachel was one of the toughest women he'd ever known, along with Olivia Benson and Barbara Gordon.

Batgirl stood waiting for him by the Prowler. "We ready?"

"Ready as we'll ever be," Batman replied. They got into the cockpit and sealed the canopy. For the second time that night, the Prowler arose silently into the night air. This time, Batman veered the aircraft in the direction of Gotham City.

"I've downloaded the three locations you indicated into the Prowler's computer," Batgirl said. "That's a neat idea you had about finding the bad guy's hideout by looking at the power draws through Gotham City's P&L records."

"Don't congratulate me just yet," he replied. "Let's wait until Bane is in custody before we pat ourselves on the backs."

Soon they were over the Iron View section, but when they reached the first address on the list, Batman saw that it was a legitimate business, a metal factory that made pots, lids and various cooking utensils. It was the same for the second address, which turned out to be a machine shop that rebuilt carburetors and transmissions for classic cars.

"Looks like I'm going to have to update my records," Batman said, as they moved on.

"Business is actually coming back to the Iron View Section?" Batgirl commented. "Now _there's_ a shocker…."

But Batman felt his hackles rise when the Prowler silently crept up on the third and last address that pulled an inordinate amount of power from Gotham City P&L. It was an abandoned warehouse, with all the windows and doors boarded up.

"Ok, now _this_ looks suspicious," Batman said. He hit the thermal vision on the Prowler, and saw a great deal of residual heat inside the place. But there were no individual heat signatures coming off of any people. That usually meant the place was empty.

"Stay up here," Batman told Batgirl, as he put the Prowler in hover mode. "Keep your eye on the sensors, and warn me if anything, even the slightest thing, is amiss."

"Got it," Batgirl said with a nod.

Batman opened the canopy, got out, and then resealed it. He dropped down onto the roof of the building and deftly rolled until he came up into a crouch right beside the skylight. The light that shone up through the skylight was blazing. Batman carefully peered down the skylight, bracing himself to jump back if necessary.

What he saw below him was a man who was seated on a chair. The man was dressed all in black, with a hat, an old style fedora, on his head. The man sat very stiffly, and didn't even move in the slightest. Batman looked at his chest and saw that he wasn't even breathing.

'There's something not right, here,' Batman thought. Recalling that the thermal vision in the Prowler had spotted no people, the big question was how could it have missed this guy? 'Unless….'

Batman called the Prowler down so it was low enough for him to jump onboard. When the canopy slid open, Batgirl said, "There's nothing out of the ordinary anywhere."

Batman stepped in and peered once more at the thermal vision, which he now had pointed directly at seated figure in the space below them. Still no heat signature.

"Son of a bitch," Batman muttered knowingly.

"What is it?" Batgirl nervously asked.

"Just watch." Leaving the canopy open, Batman brought the Prowler higher above the warehouse. Then he went out on the wing and pulled out an extra-large Batdart. He flung the Batdart straight down at the skylight. His throw, combined with gravity, sent the Batdart careening straight through the glass of the skylight.

And then the warehouse beneath them had erupted into a huge fireball.

"Oh my Gawd!" Batgirl cried from within the cockpit of the Prowler. "How did you know it was a trap?!"

"The fellow sitting in the chair was just a little too stiff to be for real," Batman said, as he sat down in the pilot's seat. "The fact that he had no heat signature only confirmed it for me."

Batman brought the Prowler down low over the flaming ruins of the warehouse. One exterior wall had collapsed from the blast, exposing the devastated interior to the night sky. The mannequin that sat in the chair below the skylight was now laying on the floor, its arms and legs skewered in all directions.

"Batman," Batgirl urgently said, "look at the back wall."

The load-bearing cinderblock wall in the back, which had easily survived the blast, contained a spray-painted message: _Batman, we shall meet at a time and place that only I shall decide. Bane. _

"He knew you were coming," Batgirl whispered with dread.

'He not only knew I was coming, but he knew I would figure out this was a trap, and even had the explosives set up in such a way that it would expose this message,' Batman thought grimly.

"He's good, he's very good," Batman grudgingly admitted. He realized that the very same type of psych-ops that he used on criminals was being used against him by Bane. "And he's just become my number one priority to take down."

**B&B**

"Damn, he never even went inside," Mo said, while they all watched the monitors.

Bane had Ralph set up a ring of surveillance cameras all around the exterior of their old hideout in the Iron View section. They now sat watching in their new hideout as the Batman cautiously approached the lair, glanced through the skylight, and then retreated to his Batplane, where he set off the explosives that were rigged by Jugsy by throwing something through the skylight.

"I guess it was too much to ask for Bats to get himself blown up, huh?" Kruse said, as he lit a new cigarette.

"He's no fool," Bane said. He sat intently watching the scene play over and over on a loop that was set up by Ralph on his laptop. "And neither should we treat him like one."

Kruse took a drag of his cigarette as he got up and walked over to the opened window and blew out smoke. "You almost sound like you admire him."

"I respect him," Bane corrected. "Much like how I respect a tiger, or any other dangerous animal. There is a difference."

"Looks like he got your message." Jugsy pointed at the screen. "The one you wrote on the wall. Do you think it affected him?"

"He saw it, that's all that matters," Bane replied.

"So what's next?" Braddock asked.

"Enough messages," Bane said. "Now we up the ante. Get ready, for we move tonight. "

**B&B**

Rachel got up and left a still slumbering Bruce in bed. Yawning, she checked calls on her cell, making sure that her DA's office didn't explode, or suffer any other crisis during the night. There was the usual collection of text messages from her ADAs concerning details about their individual cases, but there was nothing so urgent that she couldn't wait until Monday to deal with it.

After doing her exercises, Rachel took a shower in the master bedroom's private bathroom, and it was while she stood under the warm sprinkle of water in the shower room that the realization had occurred to Rachel that, for the first time since she could recall, she had slept all the way through the night with nary a nightmare. As she dried herself after the shower, Rachel realized she even felt more refreshed and well rested than she had in ages.

'And I owe it all to Bruce,' she thought with a smile.

She had waited up for him last night when he came back in after his Batman patrol. And Rachel was really glad she'd stayed up, because both Bruce and Barbara had been down in the dumps when they returned. After some coaxing on her part, Rachel finally got Bruce to tell her what had happened: Bane had been expecting them, and laid a trap.

"But it wasn't so much a trap," Bruce had said, "as it was just another elaborate way to give me a message. Bane is toying with me, Rachel. He's trying to psych me out before we even meet."

"Is it working?" she had asked.

He just grimly shook his head. "On the contrary, I _really_ can't wait to meet him."

Rachel had almost wished that Bruce would just leave Bane to the police, who were already busy investigating his messages on their end. She wasn't sure if it was as a result of the jitteriness that she'd been suffering lately, but Rachel had a bad feeling about this Bane. He was just too eager to mix it up with the Batman, when most criminals tried to avoid him as much as possible.

Bane was a large topic of their discussion as they lay in each other's arms in bed, talking quietly in the darkness. They then went on to speak at length about her phobia regarding the deceased Clayface, about how she kept seeing him everywhere. Bruce assured her that Clayface was indeed dead; the indoor pool in Wayne Manor where she had been assaulted by the shape shifter had already been razed. And Rachel realized that she had fallen asleep in Bruce's arms without even knowing it.

She got dressed in a matching outfit of beige upscale sweats and padded downstairs to the kitchen, where Rachel could smell one of Alfred's big breakfasts already cooking. Just the faintest whiff of breakfest being prepared by Alfred was enough to get Rachel's stomach hungrily churning.

Yet before she could even walk into the kitchen, a little boy of about three emerged, holding a strip of bacon in one hand and a toy light saber in the other. "Hi," he said Rachel, greedily munching on the bacon. "Who are you?"

She smiled broadly at the boy, who could only be Jonah, whom Olivia and Alex had brought over with them last night. Jonah was already sound asleep when they arrived, and was put right to bed for the night, so this was her first real meeting with the boy. "My name is Rachel. And _you_ must be Jonah!"

"Yeah," Jonah said with a shy smile. The bacon having been devoured, he excitedly pointed at her and added, "You could be Padme!"

Rachel just stared at him in bemused puzzlement as the boy stood in front with his back facing her and started waving his light saber around, as if battling to the death with an invisible opponent.

"Padme, is that a good guy, or a bad guy?" Rachel asked him.

But Jonah looked too caught up in his one-sided battle to answer her.

"Padme is definitely the good guy," Barbara replied, as she walked up to them. "She's Anakin Skywalker's girlfriend."

"Did you get enough sleep?" Rachel suddenly asked with concern.

Barbara nodded, smiling. She held a homemade light saber, which was nothing more than a pair of paper towel tubes taped together. Barefoot, and clad only in a t-shirt and shorts, Babs made for a very casual looking Jedi knight. "I'm fine. Never thought I be fighting the Clone Wars when I woke up today." Barbara abruptly bowed and added, "By the way, I'm Ahsoka Tano, Jedi apprentice extraordinaire, at your service!"

"All right, guys, come on," Olivia called from the kitchen. "Breakfast is ready!" She smiled when she saw Rachel. "Hey, Rach!"

"Morning Liv," Rachel said, as she entered the kitchen with Barbara, who herded Jonah in ahead of them.

"C'mon, sweetie," Olivia told Jonah, "we're eating in the sunroom."

But Jonah, ever the viligant Jedi knight, would not let anyone into the sunroom until he checked it out, his light saber at he ready. Barbara offered backup, and Rachel loved how enthusiastically she played with the little boy.

"Is it safe?" Olivia asked, as she and Rachel patiently waited by the doorway.

Barbara deferred to Jonah, who somberly nodded and gestured for them to come in. He was about to run off, until Olivia stopped him and gently suggested he take a seat.

"Can I keep my light saber?" he asked her.

"Yes, you can keep it by you, but don't go waving it around at the table, ok?" Olivia deftly bargained with him.

Barbara offered to help Jonah get settled in at the table, while Rachel and Olivia stepped back into the kitchen. Alfred was busy putting the finishing touches on a hearty breakfast while Alex stood nearby, chatting on a cell phone.

Rachel was about to go over and see if Alfred needed any help until Olivia gently pulled on her arm. "How are you feeling?" Olivia asked, cornering her in a secluded area by the window.

"Much better than I have felt in a while," Rachel admitted. "And I owe that to Bruce. We talked last night, about everything, until we fell asleep. And it was the _best_ sleep I had in a while."

Olivia nodded in agreement. "You look much better."

"Thanks. And I have to say the same about you!" Rachel told her. She regarded the barefoot Olivia, who was clad in jeans and a powder-blue t-shirt with a smiley face, with a big grin. "You're very good with Jonah."

"See?" Alex told Olivia, glancing up for a second from her cell. "I told you! You're a natural at parenting."

"Just who the hell are you talking to, anyway?" Olivia asked her lover.

"Jordan." Alex held up her hand in a 'wait one second' gesture, as she got back to her phone call.

"It's Saturday, Alex, tell Jordan there's never any crime on a Saturday," Olivia jokingly said.

Rachel somberly regarded Jonah through the window. The boy made a wild motion to slice the breakfast rolls with his light saber until Barbara stopped him. "They still haven't found his family yet?"

The smile was erased from Olivia's face just then. "No. I called earlier, and there was still nothing. Jonah is now the only child abducted by the Mad Hatter who still hasn't been reunited with his family."

"You think he might come from a broken home? That he could be a neglected child?"

"He displays none of the outward signs," Olivia said. "Besides, Jonah told me he lives in Metropolis."

Rachel let out a sharp gasp when she realized the implications of that statement. The devastated city was only now just starting to dig out from the rubble and debris left behind by the horrendous battle between Superman and Doomsday. The death toll now climbed towards one thousand, with the injured already well over several thousand. There was a very good chance that poor little Jonah might not have a family to be reunited with.

"I've contacted the Metropolis police, and I've got the news over there running Jonah's picture and information nonstop," Olivia said. "I've got my ear to the ground in every way I know possible, Rach. If Jonah's parents are alive, I'll hear about it right away."

"And if they're not?" Rachel asked darkly. "Have you considered what you will do then?"

But before Olivia could answer, they were interrupted by the arrival of Bruce, who strode up to them in his robe and pajamas. "Is everybody together down here?"

"Yes," Rachel replied, giving him an odd look as he switched on the TV. "What's going on?"

"I received an alert about Robin on my computer," Bruce said, giving a careful glance at Jonah. Rachel knew he actually meant the Batcomputer, but didn't want to reveal it in front of the boy. "When I checked it, I saw this. Is Barbara around? I'd like for her to see this as well."

"Hey Babs!" Olivia called into the sun room. "You wanna come in here for a moment?"

Barbara appeared in the doorway with a flourish, holding her make-shift light saber in a dramatic fashion. "My name is Ahsoka, Jedi knight!" Then, when she was startled to see Bruce grinning at her, she quickly composed herself. "Um, excuse me, did you call?"

Once everyone was gathered around the TV, save for Jonah (who was busy having a light saber fight with a potted plant in the sun room), Bruce inserted a flash card into a slot on the televison and said, "I just thought you should see what Robin's been up to in Metropolis."

"I'll talk to you later, Jordan," Alex said. Then she closed down her phone in order to fully concentrate on what Bruce had to show them.

Rachel watched, stunned, as news footage showed Robin busy at the scene of what looked like an explosion on the streets of Metropolis. Robin could be seen working in and around a huge crater in the street. There was other superheroes there, whom Rachel had never seen before, and they all appeared to be about the same age as Robin. Rachel saw what looked like a Cyborg, a human with robot parts, working alongside Robin. An orange-skinned young woman flew through the air, firing what looked like lighting bolts from her hands. The reporter explained that they had been busy containing an explosion from a gas main in the street.

Finally, once the crisis was over, the news footage cut to Robin standing at the center of a half circle formed by these heroes. Amid frantic shouted questions by the reporters, Robin and the heroes all held hands and then…vanished.

"What the…?" Olivia said, shocked. "Where'd he go?!"

"Everybody relax." Bruce raised his hands to quell the anxiety in the room. "I just called him, and he's fine. He's back with Chloe. He told me that the powers of teleportation belong to one of the members of his new group of friends, the young woman in the cloak whom they call Raven."

"That's a really wild trick," Barbara said, looking impressed.

"He went off and joined another superhero group?" Rachel asked, sotto voce. Although Jonah was in the adjacent room, she still took pains to make sure he could not overhear them.

"You don't seem too rattled by it," Olivia commented to Bruce.

"That's because there's nothing _to_ get rattled about," he replied. "Dick went to Metropolis to help out in any way he can, and that's exactly what he's doing."

"He's helping in a _really_ big way," Alex said in agreement. "This is just what Metropolis needs right now."

"Precisely," a beaming Alfred added. "You should be very proud of him, sir."

"I always was," Bruce told him. "But never more than I am now."

"Breakfast is ready," Alfred informed the group. "Shall we retreat to the sunroom?"

The following hour was pure heaven for Rachel, who enjoyed a wonderful breakfast surrounded by her loved ones. She just wished Dick could be here as well. But just seeing him helping others on the TV was extremely heartening for her. Still, in a time of darkness like this, Rachel wanted nothing more than to gather everyone she knew together, safe and sound, within the walls of Wayne Manor. That gave her an idea.

"We need to have a big gathering of friends and family," Rachel blurted out to Bruce, who sat next to her. "Thanksgiving is coming up, maybe we could make it a big holiday celebration and invite everybody here?"

"Dick _will_ be back," he told her. "He's just helping out in Metropolis for the time being."

"I realize that, Bruce, but I also miss Chloe, and Lana and Kara, as well. Come to think of it, I haven't seen Sam Spade in a while. Anybody hear how she and Logan are doing?"

"Logan's off on assignment with his group," Bruce told her, being mindful of Jonah's presence. "They've been very busy lately."

"On tour," Barbara added, needlessly embellishing the story. "On their sold out world tour."

"You're turning Logan into a rock star," Rachel accused her.

"If you ask me, that's a pretty fair assement of Logan," Bruce commented.

"Funny, that's what I've always thought of you as being," Rachel whispered into Bruce's ear. She rubbed one bare foot up his leg for emphasis. "A rock star."

"My alter ego is many things to many people," Bruce replied, as he gave her a kiss, "whatever works."

"Oh, get a room, you two," Olivia jokingly told them.

"Yeah, there are children present," Alex muttered.

Barbara gestured at Jonah, who was busy eating breakfast. "Actually, he doesn't seem to notice."

Alex stared right at Barbara. "I was referring to you!"

"Hey, hey!" Barbara said in mock anger. "Oh, that's it! Where's my light saber!"

"Speaking of Sam, we'll be working with her when we set up the next sting for the Gotham Slasher on Monday," Olivia said. "Now that he's seen Katie, we can't use her again as a decoy."

"Wait," Rachel said, when something occurred to her. "I thought Renee was joining you to be the new decoy."

Olivia shook her head. "Gordon told me that both she and Harvey have been reassigned. He gave me Sam in Renee's place."

Alex suddenly stood up. "I gotta go."

Olivia looked annoyed. "What? It's Saturday! Where are you going?"

"To work," Alex replied.

"You have the day off," Rachel told Alex, "and I'm your boss, so that really makes it official."

Alex smiled at Rachel's joke. "I know. I'm going to my _other_ job."

Rachel nodded in understanding. Alex often referred to her work with the Underground Meta Railroad as being her other job.

"Was that what the call from Jordan about?" Olivia asked.

Alex nodded. "Can I speak with you for a second?"

"Sure thing." Olivia got up and left with her.

"Speaking of work, I should get to my 'office' and get busy," Bruce muttered. When Barbara made to go with him, Bruce just shook his head. "That's ok. Enjoy the day with Jonah. If I need you, I'll call."

"So you think the Thanksgiving bash is a good idea?" Rachel asked.

He leaned over and gave her a kiss on the top of her head. "I think it's a great idea. Let's do it."

"Splendid," Alfred said, smiling. He began to clear away some of the dishes from the table. "And just in time, as well. The sooner you start planning for an event like this, the better."

Rachel noticed that she, Jonah and Barbara were presently the only ones seated at the table. Jonah, who was finished eating, stared at Barbra with interest. He picked up his light saber and said, "Come on, Barbara."

"Oh, yes," she happily replied, picking up her paper towel roll light saber. "I thought I saw some Sith Lords lurking around the gym."

"Sith Lords?" Rachel asked with interest. "Are they bad?"

"They're evil!" Jonah informed her. "And they're after _you_, Padme!"

"They are?!" Rachel said, doing her best to look scared.

Jonah got up from the table and came over to Rachel, his light saber in one hand. "But don't worry, Ahsoka and I will protect you."

Sharing a furtive smile with Barbara, Rachel allowed Jonah to take her by the hand and lead her to safety down the hall. And so the District Attorney for Gotham City wound up spending the better part of her Saturday running and hiding from imaginary Sith Lords within the spacious rooms of Wayne Manor.

And Rachel loved every minute of it.

**B&B**

"So where are you going, Alex?" Olivia asked, once they were back in their private apartment suite within Wayne Manor.

"To meet with Jordan," Alex replied. "Since finding out that the Gotham Slasher is a meta, we've decided to try and see if we can track him down within the Meta Underground. Jordan said she's gathered as much material as she could on the metas within the Underground whose powers match what we've seen the Slasher display."

"You know for a fact that he entered Gotham City through the Underground?"

Alex shook her head. "No, but it fits, doesn't it? I mean, since the Underground was revived, we've been responsible for increasing the population of Metas within Gotham City."

Olivia went over and gently caressed the side of Alex's arm. "Even if the Meta Underground did bring him here, it's still not your fault, Alex. You couldn't have known beforehand what he would do."

Alex cast her gaze at the floor. "But I still feel like I should do something."

"Is Marguerite working with you?"

"She refuses to help us. Marguerite thinks this investigation is a betrayal of all the good metas in the Underground."

"She's entitled to her opinion, but I think it's extremely wise of you to tackle the investigation from this end," Olivia said. "The only thing that worries me is what you will do if you find something."

Alex gave her a frown. "What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean, Alex, you're going to run off and play Nancy Drew by trying to find this guy yourself, aren't you?"

"No!" Alex said angrily. "Jordan will be with me." When Olivia just rolled her eyes towards the ceiling, Alex added, "What?! We can both take care of ourselves! We'll be armed with tasers."

"The Slasher has super strenght, and super speed," Olivia reminded her. "Will a taser even work against him?"

"Well, what do you suggest?" Alex asked, sounding miffed. "After all, I can't very well conduct this investigation in my office, now, can I?"

"Look, just have Jordan come over and you two can work it out here," Olivia suggested. "If you come up with a likely suspect, then take it to Bruce. Let the Batman handle it from there."

That idea caught Alex by surprise. "Damn it, Liv, that's pretty good. I never really considered going to Bruce with this because he usually has so much on his plate as Batman."

"By doing the investigating for him, you're already relieving him of a lot of the work," Olivia said. "Just let him handle the heavy lifting, if there is any."

Alex nodded. "I'll call Jordan and invite her over. But before I do, I need to know something: what are we doing with Jonah?"

Olivia just shrugged. "It's like I told you last night, I know I probably shouldn't have done it, but I just couldn't stand the thought of leaving the little guy in foster care over the weekend. That's why I brought him here."

"I know that. And I'm really glad you did it. But what about beyond the weekend?" Alex asked. "What happens if Jonah has no family to be found? What then?"

"Rachel asked me that same basic question just before breakfast," Olivia said. "I never got a chance to answer it, because Bruce had come down just then."

"Nobody's going to walk in on us now, Liv, so what's your answer?"

"I honestly don't know, Alex. I'm just taking this day by day. But I have to admit that…I'm falling hard for the little guy."

Alex smiled. "I am, too. But before we start making any grand plans, perhaps we should continue taking this day by day. They could still find his family, Liv, so let's just enjoy being with him for now."

"You're right," Olivia said. Then, as Alex called Jordan, a horrible thought crossed her mind: a part of Olivia was actually hoping they wouldn't find Jonah's family, just so she and Alex could keep him for themselves.

'Oh, Christ, Olivia, get a frigging grip!' she angrily told herself.

**B&B**

_I'm going for it tonight. Keep watching the news. _

James Varlis reread the text over and over again. He had been just about to indulge in a little pleasure time in his Gotham City condo this evening when he received the text message from Bane on his cell. 'He's here barely a few days and already he's going for the kill,' Varlis thought with admiration. 'Now that's gumption!'

Varlis realized that he would have to postphone his playtime for now, but he didn't think Maria would mind. He strode into the bedroom, where he found the naked Maria lying on his bed, staring at him with abject terror. Her arms and legs were trussed up behind her back in a hogtie fashion, and she wore a ball gag in her mouth.

Varlis cut her loose, then went over to the end table and opened the bottle of champagne that he kept on ice. He'd meant to save this for after sex, but the news of Bane finally engaging Batman in battle was just the perfect occasion for him to pop the cork.

He poured two glasses, then glanced over at the now freed Maria, who sat up on the bed and gratefully removed the gag. "Did I tell you to take that out of your mouth?"

Maria stared at him in wide-eyed horror. "I-I'm sorry, sir!"

She was about to place the gag back in her mouth until Varlis just smiled broadly at her. "Leave it out. Drink with me."

She accepted the drink with shaking hands, always staring fearfully at him. When Varlis held his drink up over her in a toast, Maria flinched violently, as if he was about to hit her. He enjoyed keeping her on edge like this; it excited him to no end.

"Superman now dead and Batman soon to join him," Varlis said, giving his toast, "here's to a world that belongs once more to decent, God-fearing people!"

**B&B**

The men dispersed from the van once it came to a stop outside the Showcase Square Mall. They walked briskly into the mall through a side entrance, all clad in black trench coats with white ghost masks over their faces. In their hands were automatic weapons. The man who strode ahead of the group did not wear a ghost mask; instead his mask was black, with gold trimming around the triangular goggles.

Various people, most of whom looking to get an early start on their Christmas shopping, all quickly moved out of the way of the armed gang as they hustled through the mall, heading for a specific destination.

At the upper level of the food court, a mall security guard, seeing them approach, raised his hand at the men. "Hold it! What the hell are you…?"

The black-masked man, the only one of the group who was not armed, shattered the unarmed guard's nose with his fist. The guard fell back, dazed and bleeding. But the man who bashed in his nose caught him and effortlessly raised the helpless security guard above his head. This scene now caused shoppers to flee in wild, panicked terror.

When they reached the edge of the food court, the armed men raced down the steps, while the large man flung the hapless security guard over the railing, his body landing on an empty table, startling the diners, who fled their tables enmass. But while they instinctively moved away from the dead man, they had inadvertently herded themselves right into the armed squad of masked men who stood waiting for them.

"GET ON THE GODDAMNED FLOOR, NOW!" the men barked at the hysterical group of shoppers, who consisted of about thirty people, including children. Faced with automatic weapons pointed at them, the shoppers had no choice but to do what they were told.

The large man nodded in satisfaction at the large number of hostages they'd caught. He also gave the thumbs up to the henchmen who quickly set up explosive devices in the area directly surrounding the food court, which should amply serve to discourage any deluded heroics from the Gotham City Police.

One of the ghost-masked men took a seat at a table and typed furiously on a laptop. Then he glanced up and nodded. "I hacked into the surveillance system. We now own it. We can see everything that takes place inside and outside the mall."

"Excellent." He leapt down into the food court, where his other men were busy binding the wrists of their hostages with zip ties. He stood admiring the food court's waterfall for a moment, ignoring the whining and pleading that came from the terrified hostages.

But there was one voice that stood out amid the chorus of cries: that of a young boy, who shouted: "You'll never get away with this! The Batman's gonna come, and he's gonna kick your butt!"

He strode over to the boy, who was tightly embraced by his crying mother, who kept saying, "He didn't mean it, he didn't mean it!" over and over.

But the boy still looked defiant. "Just you watch. The Dark Knight will be here any minute, now!"

"My dear boy," Bane said, with a predatory smile under his mask, "I sincerely hope so."

**To Be Continued...**


	7. Chapter 7

_My thanks to stargaze29, EroSlackerMicha and Donny for their reviews. I'd also like to thank those of you who either favored me, or this story._

**Batman & Benson 8**

**Chapter Seven**

After spending the better part of the day playing Star Wars, Jonah had finally crashed. Barbara could tell the little boy was getting tired when he took a seat on the sofa, his light saber dangling precariously from his hand. Just as he fell sound asleep, he released the light saber, but Barbara quickly grabbed it before it could hit the floor. She placed it right beside the little slumbering Jedi Knight.

A smiling Rachel, who was seated in a hard-backed chair, playing at being a captive Padme, stood up and easily slipped out of the extremely loose rope that Jonah had previously tied around her. However, she needed some help with her feet, and so Barbara bent down and helped Rachel step out of the bonds that were wrapped around her ankles. Rachel then took Barbara's hand and they both left a sleeping Jonah in the living room.

"And so ends the latest episode of the Clone Wars," Barbara whispered.

Rachel laughed as she gave Barbara a one-armed hug. "He's adorable, isn't he? So much boundless energy!"

Barbara, who really admired Rachel for playing so enthusiastically with them, was about to reply in kind, until she stopped short at a stunning sight that was right outside the window. Although it was still technically late afternoon, the November night had already fallen, creating the perfect backdrop for the Bat-signal, which glowed brilliantly against the inky blackness.

"Uh-oh," Barbara said in a low voice. "Duty calls."

Alfred urgently appeared around the corner and gestured at the Bat-signal outside. "I see you ladies have taken note of the message. There's a breaking story on the news. Where's Master Bruce?"

"Last we saw him, he was with Liv and the others in the library," Rachel said.

Yet Bruce emerged from the library just as they raced up to it. Olivia walked alongside of him. "Saw the Bat-signal," he said, keeping his voice low so that Jordan, who was still working in the library with Alex, wouldn't overhear. Once Bruce and Liv joined them, the entire group all automatically turned around and started walking towards the Batcave. "Anything on the news?"

"An armed gang has seized control of the food court at the Showcase Square Mall," Alfred reported. "They have hostages, and they're being led by a man who has identified himself as Bane, sir."

"Did he say what he wanted?" Bruce asked.

"You, sir," Alfred replied. "Or, rather, he specifically requested the Batman's presence."

That caused Bruce and Olivia to give each other a wary look. "You were right," Olivia said. "He's calling you out."

"It's just what he said in the last message," Bruce muttered. "That we'd meet only at a time and a place where he decreed."

"The whole thing could be a trap," a worried Rachel said. "I'm sure Jim's already on the scene in full force. Maybe we should wait and see if the GCPD can handle it."

"If Jim could have handled it, then he wouldn't have lit up the Bat-signal," Bruce said.

Alfred shook his head. "The SWAT team already went in, or tried to, but they had to withdraw because Bane's men have the area too heavily fortified."

"Damn it," Bruce said angrily. "Where there any injuries?"

"Several of the SWAT team members were hurt by explosives," Alfred said. "But nobody was killed."

"Shit, hope Maggie's all right," Olivia said, referring to the SWAT team commander, who was a friend.

They were all silent as they rode the elevator down to the main Batcave level. Once they emerged, Bruce walked over to the Batcomputer, which had already red-flagged the incident at the Showcase Square Mall and displayed all relevant information. But before Barbara could even take a seat at the computer, Bruce glanced at her and said, "Suit up."

Once again, Barbara was pleasantly surprised at the fact that she was going out with the Batman as Batgirl. She quickly headed to her personal changing room and exchanged her shorts and t-shirt for her Batgirl suit. Once she was fully suited up, Batgirl left the changing room and saw that Batman now stood in front of the Batcomputer, taking special notice of surveillance footage from the mall's security cameras.

"The mall's security system has been hacked into, no doubt by Bane and his men," Batman told her. "This footage was taken before they hacked the system."

Batgirl watched a large group of masked men as they boldly stormed into the mall. The team all wore ghost masks, save for one man, who strode in front of the others, he wore a black mask. Batgirl's eyes grew wide when she saw the black-masked man assault a security guard, then throw him over the railing into the food court, which was easily a one story drop.

"That's Bane," Batman said.

"He's tried to intimidate you with psychological scare tactics, and he's sure tough enough against an unarmed security guard," Olivia commented with a disgusted expression. "But he looks just like a typical thug."

"He may look like just another thug, but to treat him as such would be a fatal mistake, sis," Batman said.

The video went black at that point. "That must be when they hacked into the system," Batgirl noted. "He's still smart enough to blind the outside world to what he's doing."

Batman nodded. "Then let's go get a close up look, Batgirl."

"Prowler?" Batgirl asked.

Batman shook his head. "Tumbler."

"There are reports from the DEA that he's ripped people's hearts right out of their chests," Rachel nervously called after them, as they ran over to the massive, tank-like vehicle. "So, please, be careful!"

"Always," Batman said, just as the Tumbler's canopy sealed up over him and Batgirl.

As they sped towards Gotham City at top speed, Batgirl braced herself for the coming battle. 'Looks like we're finally going to see just how tough this Bane really is,' she grimly thought.

**B&B**

"Once again: we have hostages at the Showcase Square Mall," the female reporter urgently said. "And we've just learned that SWAT units from the GCPD had made an attempt to rescue the hostages, but that they were not successful. They had to pull back."

He had been busy doodling smiley faces over the mouths of supermodels in a magazine that the guards had brought him. It was an issue of Women's Wear Daily, and he just knew the guards thought they were being so darn clever by giving it to him. But the fact of the matter was, he didn't really care what magazine they gave him. As long as he was armed with enough magic markers to draw mustaches and silly grins on the faces of the slack-jawed cretins in the magazine; as long as he defaced these morons, who were being held up as the crème de la crème of this badly decaying society, he was a happy man.

"Any report of gunfire, Jean?" the anchor at the news desk asked the reporter on the scene.

She shook her head. "No, Steve. We're probably not close enough to hear any gunfire. But we've managed to get this shot from our Eye In The Sky helicopter."

He had left the TV on as background noise. But when this story came on, he had actually glanced up from the doodling, and when they showed what came next, he discarded the magazine altogether and gave the TV his full attention.

The image on the TV changed to that of a bird's eye point of view of the massive skylight above the food court of the Showcase Square Mall. A dark-clad, muscular man could be seen standing in the food court beneath the glass. He was covered completely in black, ninja-style, from head to toe. Yet his eyes, which were actually night vision goggles, were highlighted in such a way that it gave him a predator-like look.

'It's him,' he realized, as a grin crept along his red lips. 'He's finally making his move.'

He had seen the earlier news reports, which spoke of threatening messages being sent to the Batman by someone who called himself Bane. The police wouldn't release the exact messages, damn them, but it was said that this Bane fellow was basically calling Batman out for a major fight.

"The Bat-signal is lit," Steve, the anchorman somberly intoned on the TV. "But it remains to be seen whether the Batman will respond."

'Oh, he'll be there,' he thought. 'My darling little Bat wouldn't miss _this_ for the world.'

He watched with fascination as Bane (and there was no doubt in his mind who that man could be) grabbed a bound hostage, a woman, and held her up against his body with one hand, while he beckoned at the sky with his other hand. He wasn't just expecting the Batman, Bane was welcoming him.

"Oooo, watch your back, Bats," the Joker whispered, "'cause they're _really_ gunning for you this time…."

**B&B**

"Oh God…oh God…oh God," the woman repeated, over and over again.

Bane held her close to his body as he glared up at the helicopters that hovered over the glass ceiling of the Showcase Square Mall food court. He knew that most of the choppers were media, he could see the cameras dangling from their noses.

But at least two of the choppers up there were GCPD, and so Bane had grabbed this woman from the crowd of hostages and held her close to him, lest any police snipers had any ideas about picking him off.

He had fully anticipated the Batman smashing his way through that glass ceiling, as he made one of the grand entrances that he was famous for. But Bane was more than ready for him. Once the Dark Night smashed through the glass above him, Bane planned on snapping this woman's neck. That should shock the Batman enough, psyche him out to the point where Bane will instantly have the advantage over him in the coming battle, which will be short and sweet.

However, the Batman was certainly taking his sweet time getting here. Bane stared up through the glass ceiling with increasing impatience at the hovering helicopters, until he said, "Where is he?"

"I'm right here," a cold, dark voice replied in his ear.

Startled, Bane stepped backwards, pulling the bound woman with him, and when he did this, Bane was then slugged in the face with a right hook that sent him careening against the wall.

The bound woman ran off to be with the other hostages. Bane stood there, staggered, as Batman glared back at him. Bane glanced up at the still-intact glass ceiling and realized that the Dark Knight had never jumped through it.

'He changes his tactics,' Bane angrily thought. 'How stupid of me! I should have realized that he would never use the same tactics twice!'

"Holy shit!" Kruse shouted, when he glanced over. "He's here! Batman's already here!"

"And now the party can begin," Batman said in his demonic voice, as he threw what looked like a pellet onto the floor. It exploded into thick, billowing smoke that quickly flooded the entire food court.

"Leave him to me!" Bane called to his men. Still able to see Batman's figure in the thick mist, Bane charged at him with full force. "Batman belongs to me!"

He knocked the dark-suited figure to the floor, then bashed him in the face with a savage one-two punch. "How do you like _this_, Batman?" Bane taunted.

Yet when the unconscious figure turned out to have a ghost mask, Bane was startled to see that he had just attacked one of his own men.

"Enjoying this very much, thank you," the cold, dark voice causally replied.

Bane was abruptly thrown off of his man by a savage kick to his side, which propelled him across the floor. He immediately rose to his feet, just as Batman attacked once more by grabbing his arm and slamming Bane face-first into the solid marble wall. Batman then bent Bane's arm up painfully behind his back.

"Why are you here?" Batman asked, as he expertly kept Bane pressed up against the wall. If he moved ever so slightly, Batman painfully twisted his arm. "You're a contract killer, so who hired you?"

"Bane," Braddock's voice urgently came over the comm. "Looks like GCPD is making another run at us down the main corridor of the mall!"

"Answer me!" Batman snarled, as he twisted Bane's arm even harder. "Tell me who hired you!"

"No," Bane said through gritted teeth. With his free arm, he punched the hidden button on his vest…the button that released more Venom into his bloodstream. "NO!"

The pain in his arm instantly vanished as the Venom surged through his system like wildfire. Bane, now enjoying double strength, easily broke Batman's hold on him. He spun around, grabbed the Batman by the throat and tried to instantly snap his neck, yet discovered that Batman's armored suit protected him. So he did the next best thing: Bane flung Batman through the glass wall of an empty pizzeria. Now it was Batman's turn to stagger in shock.

"Go and deal with what's coming down the corridor," Bane calmly ordered his men over the comm, "I shall handle the Batman."

**B&B**

Kruse and Mo joined Braddock and Jugsy topside in one of the main shopping promenades, which, like the entire mall, was completely empty of people. Although they all wore ghost masks, Kruse could still tell from their body types who was who.

Braddock and Jugsy were hiding behind one of the support pillars that held up the glass ceiling above their heads. Braddock did a double take at the sight of only two of them. "Where's Ralph?"

"Dumb schmuck got in-between Bane and Bats during their big brawl," Kruse replied. "What's coming?"

"A tank, I think," Braddock said. "That's what it sounds like."

"You couldn't tell what it is from the cameras?" Kruse asked.

Braddock shook his head. "All the cameras are being jammed."

"I thought you said Gotham SWAT didn't have tanks!" Mo angrily said.

"They use armored cars, which is basically a big truck with exposed tires," Jugsy said in a soothing manner. "Relax, Mo, they ain't getting past my bombs." He held up one finger. "Watch, any second now…and here we go!"

They all instinctively ducked when a huge explosion ripped apart the promenade several stores down from where they took shelter behind the pillar.

When the blast subsided, Kruse chanced a peek around the pillar. His eyes grew wide with alarm behind his mask when he saw something large, sleek and dark emerge at full speed from the smoke and debris. "It's still coming!"

"What?!" Jugsy said, stunned. "Not possible!"

"Whatever that thing is," Mo chimed in, "it don't look like SWAT. Hell, it don't even look like the cops!"

Kruse stared at the big, dark monster that roared its way towards them. Then he turned to Mo and said, "RPG! In the bag on your back! Get me the RPG, NOW!"

**B&B**

Batgirl did exactly what Batman had told her: wait fifteen minutes, then come charging down the North promenade in the Tumbler. Not a moment too soon, nor too late. And if she encountered any resistance, she was to let the Tumbler handle it. Her mission was to ultimately get the Tumbler to the Food Court, come hell or high water.

'I'm the diversion,' she thought, smiling. She affectionately patted the console of the Tumbler.

It had been smooth sailing so far, until Batgirl saw a masked man step out from behind a pillar with a rocket propelled grenade launcher on his shoulder. "Oh, now, that's just rude!"

She immediately slowed the Tumbler to a halt and used it's targeting system to get a lock on the pillar directly in front of the man, then opened fire. The Tumbler fired two of its mini-missles directly at the pillar, exploding it just as the man fired the RPG. The blast, along with the flying debris, knocked the man down to the ground, throwing off his aim, and sending his grenade straight into the front windows of Little Daisies, a women's clothing store.

The entire front window display promptly exploded, sending glass and clothing harmlessly over the Tumbler's armored skin. Only one of the mannequins in what was left of Little Daises' display had survived the blast, and it crazily swayed back and forth with its arms now held out as if in surrender.

When she saw two of the masked men were now trying to reload the RPG, Batgirl sought to teach them a lesson. "Oh, my little Jonah," she said with a grin, as she fed in new targets for the Tumbler to shoot, "if only you could see your good friend Babs right now!"

She punched the button, and the Tumbler then fired a round of four missiles into the two main support pillars that the group of masked men were using for cover. This renewed bombarment forced the shooter to drop his RPG as he and the rest of his masked crew all wildly fled from the shattered pillars, which began to groan loudly. The men were now running for their lives away from the Tumbler, all glancing up at something.

"Wait, what….?" Batgirl said, as she nervously cast her eyes upwards. Then she became alarmed when the pillars, having been devastated by her attack, both gave way. This literally brought the entire greenhouse-like ceiling above down with them. The floor of this portion of the promenade was now covered with a jumble of steel girders and broken glass.

"Oh, Gawd," Batgirl whispered in horror, as she gazed up at the now wide open night sky above her. "I broke the mall…."

Then, she was startled by a large explosion that rattled the entire mall. Batgirl let out terrified gasp when she realized where the explosion came from: the food court.

**B&B**

'He's gotten stronger,' Batman thought, as he shook off having just been thrown through a plate glass wall. 'Hell, he even _looks_ bigger! There's far more at play here than meets the eye.'

Bane stalked towards him, his boots crunching the shards of broken glass underneath. "This ends right here, right now, Batman!"

"Couldn't agree more," Batman replied, as he swung with a right hook at his head.

But Bane blocked the punch and gave him a right hook of his own. The blow sent Batman straight over the main counter of the pizza parlor, his body knocking over the heating lamps which kept freshly cooked food warm on the counter. Sparks now shot out from the severed connection on the counter where the heat lamps once stood.

'It's like I'm now fighting a super powered meta,' Batman thought, as he watched bane jump over the counter. 'At least that explains how he's able to rip people's hearts out.'

Batman reached into his utility belt and pulled out a flash pellet just as Bane came around the counter and charged at him, his massive hands reaching for him.

Thowing the flash pellet right in Bane's face, Batman closed his eyes and ducked just as it exploded as bright as the sun right in front of Bane's eyes.

Bane let out a howl of pain and frustration as he clasped his hands over his goggles. Batman delivered another kick to Bane's midsection, sending him crashing against the stove behind the counter.

"Nice trick, Batman," he said, his voice rough. "Here's a trick of my own!"

He bent down before the large stove and ripped it out from the wall as effortlessly as one would remove a chair from a table. Bane then held the stove high above his head.

But all Batman saw was the stove's gas line, which had been ripped open from the wall and was now spewing gas all over the restaurant. And then he looked over at the still-sparking power connection.

"I'll catch the next show," Batman muttered, as he turned and ran as fast as he could out of the pizza parlor. Now that the smoke bomb he'd used had dissipated, Batman could see that the hostages were all gone, the last of them now frantically running up the stairs to the main level of the mall.

They had taken advantage of the fact that Bane's goons were too busy to make a run for it, which was exactly how Batman had set it up. He'd hoped that dealing with Batgirl in the Tumbler would be enough of a distraction for Bane's goons to keep them occupied long enough for him to handle their boss.

'But Bane turned out to be a little harder to take down than I'd figured,' Batman thought. 'I still underestimated him badly.'

When he saw the unconscious masked goon on the floor, who was the only person left in the food court, Batman spread open his batwings and dived over him in an effort to protect him from the coming blast. Batman had just enough time to seal off the hearing ports on his cowl just before the entire world had seemingly gone up in flames all around him.

**B&B**

'Whoa,' Batgirl thought, as she pulled the Tumbler up to the edge of the food court. Thick black smoke arose from the court, which made it look like a volcano.

As she opened the Tumbler's canopy and stood up to see how she could help the Batman, Batgirl was stunned at the sight of the large group of hostages, who all came running over and surrounded the massive vehicle.

"Is that Batman?" a man asked his wife, as they both stared in puzzlement at Batgirl. "He looks smaller than I thought."

"Batgirl! Batgirl!" a group of girls stood screaming excitedly at her. They were all smiles, and looked like they were meeting a rock star.

Batgirl was flabbergasted when she realized that she knew them. They were the pouty little dweebs in the cheerleading squad at her school. They never even gave her a second look whenever she walked past them in the hallways, and now they all looked like they wanted to join her fan club.

She was grateful to see Batman shove his way past the crowds, carrying one of the masked henchmen over his shoulder.

Batman ignored the crowds long enough to dump the masked man, whose wrists were tied behind his back, into the cockpit of the Tumbler. Then he turned and faced the hostages. "Is this all of you?" he asked. "Is anyone missing?"

"No," a woman said. "We're all here. Did you get the bad guy?"

"He won't be bothering you anymore," Batman replied. To this, the group of former hostages all cheered and whooped. Batman climbed in beside Batgirl and said, "Just stay here and wait for help. It's coming."

He drove the Tumbler out of the mall. Batgirl sat with the masked man lying prone at her feet. She was afraid to speak easily in the presence of this stranger. It didn't matter if he was knocked out, Batgirl still didn't want to risk discussing personal details in front of him.

Batman asked, "Any trouble getting to the food court?"

When Batgirl told him about her run in with the four masked men and the RPG, he just nodded his head.

"What happened to Bane?" she asked.

"He ripped out a gas stove during our fight, exposing the gas to sparks, which was what set off the explosion," Batman explained. "But after the explosion, I couldn't find him. The ceiling of the pizza parlor we were fighting in had collapsed."

"He might have been killed in the blast," she suggested.

"Or he might have gotten out through the back door," he growled. "Never assume your opponent is down for the count unless you know for sure."

Once they were in the parking lot, Batman pulled up to a woman who stood in front of a police barricade. Batgirl smiled when it turned out to be Detective Samantha Spade, of the Major Case Squad. Batman dumped the masked man on the ground in front of her, then told Sam that Bane and four of his henchmen had gotten away.

Sam bent down and removed the ghost mask from the man, then she gave Batman a surprised look. "Hey," she said. "I recognize this guy…."

"I do, as well," Batman said, as he peered at the man. "It's Ralph Connors, who was part of the Manbat team."

Batgirl grew livid when she heard this. She still had the occasional nightmare of being helplessly tied down to that damned gurney, with one of those inhuman Manbat monsters hanging over her. In her nightmares, the creature always opened its eyes and attacked her…and right then she would wake up in a cold sweat.

Given the monumental tragedy of Superman's death, and all the usual craziness that happened here in Gotham City, Batgirl never really gave much thought about the fact that the Manbat crew had been released from jail…until now. The fact that they were running loose, causing more trouble like this for other people just infuriated her to no end. It occurred to her that she might well have been fighting Braddock and the other men in the mall just now.

When Batman climbed back in the Tumbler and drove off, he knew she must have overheard, because he glanced sideways at her and asked, "Are you ok?"

"No," Batgirl answered truthfully. "Bane hired the very guys who abducted me, and they're all still on the loose. I'm pissed off!"

"You have a right to be," he replied. "But finding out that one of the Manbat crew is working for Bane is still a small victory for us."

"It is? How?"

"I now know who hired Bane to come after me," Batman said, his eyes aglow with triumph. "It's James Varlis."

**B&B**

Deanna let out a sigh of relief when she saw Bane enter their living room. Then she recoiled in horror at the damage that his outfit bore. "What happened?"

"What happened?" Bane repeated, with a humorless chuckle. "The Batman happened, my dear."

She flinched when he abruptly walked past her and punched the wall in anger. His hand left a fist-sized hole in the plaster. "I take it that things didn't go well?" she meekly asked.

"I meant to psyche him out," Bane said, as he stood with both hands pressed up against the very wall he'd punched. "I sought to defeat him, mentally, before we had even met in physical combat. But instead, he psyched _me_ out! He had the upper advantage from the very moment I first laid eyes on him! I became so flustered and enraged that I stupidly ripped a stove out from the wall, intending to smash him with it. However, I wound up causing an explosion that very nearly killed me!"

He smashed the wall again, and then a third time. There were now three holes in the cracked plaster. "To say that it didn't go well is putting it very mildly," Bane said in a menacing growl.

Deanna went over to him and placed her arm on his muscular shoulder. "Come over to the sofa with me," she gently asked, "please."

He did so, sitting in a slumped position. He let out a deep breath. "Sorry about the wall, my love."

"Forget it," she replied, as she removed his mask. "All that matters is that you're home, safe."

Yet before she could comfort him further, Bane received a call on his cell. It wound up being a text message from Varlis: _That could have went better. _

Bane just flung the phone across the room, and Deanna dared to hope that this might be the end of this nonsense. She stood up beside him and stripped off his vest, and when she examined the reserve of Venom inside the vest, Deanna was shocked to see that it was completely empty. "You used up your complete supply?"  
"You need to rework the formula," he solemnly told her. "If I am going to kill the Batman, I need much more of it."

She gave him a horrified look. "More?! You've already been consuming twice the dosage that you're normally used to!"

"It's not enough," he insisted, "not against the Batman."

"You said you picked up a stove, that sounds like the Venom was working just fine."

"But I shouldn't have done that! It was a stupid, brutish move." He shook his head in disgust. "It was beneath me."

"The Venom increases your strength through your adrenaline," Deanna explained. "Once the adenaline courses through your body, the Venom then takes over…."

"Making my muscles twice their size, yes, I understand how it works," Bane said impatiently.

"No, you don't," Deanna retorted. "Bane, the Venom is basically a rage-driven substance. The more anger, the more rage-filled you feel, the more powerful the Venom makes you. But the downside of that is that your critical thinking gets shut down. You're both physically and mentally propelled by your rage. That was why you ripped the stove from the wall. The Venom had made you so enraged that you literally weren't thinking."

"I never had this problem before," he said.

"You never had your own supply of Venom, which you injected yourself with, whenever you needed it." Deanna shook her head. "I was afraid of a side effect like this."

"We can't stop now."

Deanna got on her knees on the floor in front of him and took his massive hands in her own. "Yes, we can. Why don't we just leave, just the two of us, right now?"

He stared at her with a mixture of confusion and anger. "Leave? What are you saying?"

"I'm asking you to forget this insane plan to kill the Batman, my love. I'm asking you to come with me, right now, tonight, and leave Gotham City. Forget the money, we don't need it. I can be happy living anywhere with no money at all…as long as I am with you."

Bane stood up just then and walked over to the windows. "That is out of the question."

"Why? Why can't we just shuck all of this nonsense and just go off on our own?"

"For one thing, I am being paid a great deal of money by Mr. Varlis to kill the Batman. And I am a man of my honor."

Deana grew angry as she rose to her feet. "And do you think Varlis is also a man of honor? Have you taken a good look at Maria, lately? Have you seen the marks that bastard has left on her? He's even worse then Deles! How can you be concerned with keeping your word to a monster like him?"

"Because it is _my_ word, my love," Bane replied. "And it is important to _me_ that I keep it. With the money that we're getting from Varlis, we will be able to live wherever and however we choose. We shall finally be free from a life of working at the whims of vicious bastards like Varlis."

He picked up the cell phone that he had thrown and started writing a text message. Before Deanna could ask who he was texting, the doorbell rang.

"Get that for me, will you?" Bane asked her, as he kept texting. "That will be Braddock and the others."

That stopped Deanna short. This was their private apartment, and she had wanted to keep it that way. "Why are they coming here?!"

"Because I told them to," Bane said. "We needed a place to regroup, and this was as good as any."

Deanna fumed as she answered the door. Braddock stood there, along with the others in the crew. They all looked weary and beatened. Deanna led them to where Bane stood in the living room.

She saw that Bane had put his mask back on. He held up the cell phone and said, "I have just informed Varlis that we shall either kill the Batman in our next meeting, or he can fire us."

"A little overconfident aren't ya?" Mo asked.

"Yeah," an annoyed Kruse said, "especially since you didn't do so well against the Bat tonight. What happened?"

"A minor setback, gentlemen," Bane assured them.

"A minor setback?" Braddock repeated, his eyebrows raised. "Ralph got pinched by the cops tonight!"

Bane regarded the cell, which had rung in his hand. "Varlis has just answered my text. He agrees to the terms."

"So either we kill the Batman the next time out, or we're all out of a job," Braddock said with an uncertain look. "What are we gonna do?"

"It's simple, Mr. Braddock," Bane calmly replied. "We shall not fail."

"What about Ralph?" Jugsy asked. "We just leave him in the slammer?"

"On the contrary, we shall bust him out tomorrow," Bane replied smoothly.

"Really?" Kruse asked. He had a keen look of interest. "How do you propose doing that?"

"Since you all were recently guests of the Gotham City penal system, I was hoping you gentlemen might help me plot out the details concerning a full-on assault," Bane said.

Braddock glanced at the others, who all nodded their assent. "Very well, Bane."

"Then let's get started, shall we? But, before we do…." Bane picked up his damaged Venom vest and gave it to Deanna. "And, darling, please see to my request," he added in a whisper to her. "Either increase the amount of Venom, or see about increasing the potency. I will need it by tomorrow."

Deanna began to shake her head. "But I just told you…."

"Now that I know what to expect, I can control the rage," Bane promised her. He continued, sotto voce: "It will be all right, my dear. We just have to complete this very last assignment, and then we will be free, you and I."

Deanna took the vest and left them to plot out their next move. Despite the nagging doubt she had, she entered her private lab and went about readjusting the Venom for Bane.

'Either he kills the Batman, or he fails and gets fired,' Deanna thought, 'either way, it will soon come to an end. It will all work out.'

Yet there still persisted a little voice in the back of Deanna's head that warned this was a very dark road that they presently traveled on.

**B&B**

Deidre Clevenger walked up to the closed door of Amanda Waller's office and knocked. Even though it was Saturday night, the OHMR was still running at full throttle, thanks to the continuing crisis in Metropolis. And now Deidre had received the news that Gotham City had become a war zone, thanks to a battle at their mall between Batman and somebody called Bane.

"Come in," Waller called.

When Deidre entered, she was taken aback by the sight of Amanda Waller admiring herself in the full length mirror. She was clad in a fancy red evening gown. "What do you think?" she asked. "I plan on wearing this when I attend the AIDS charity later this week."

"It's…very nice, ma'am," Deidre replied. "Uh, I was not aware you had been invited to the charity ball."

"The President requested that I attend," Waller said. "He wishes to speak with me there, privately, about the growing Meta problem. His Chief Of Staff has indicated that the President might be amenable to opening more detention camps for criminal Metas. So this will be a big deal for all of us."

Deidre nodded, seeing her entry point. "Speaking of which, Ma'am. There's a situation developing in Gotham City."

Waller waved her hand. "Oh, there's _always _a situation developing in that crazy city! We should just barricade that place and let them kill each other off."

'You stupid bitch,' Deidre angrily thought. Since Metropolis had been badly destroyed by Superman and Doomsday, Amanda Waller had become the poser child for the Anti-Meta movement, which has only grown in strength and popularity. And the media had been pounding on the door, nonstop. Waller had recently done so many interviews and talk shows, that she had rarely been in the office, lately.

'And now that's she's finally here, the little media diva's head is so far up her own ass she's not even paying attention to the important business,' Deidre thought with contempt. But she should have known better. After all, Waller was never in the trenches. She wasn't in Cadmus. Waller was nothing more than a self-serving bureaucrat who was now drunk on the celebrity status that she had achieved over the corpses in the Metropolis disaster. Deidre always thought that they should have put someone from Cadmus in charge of the OHMR. Someone like her.

'Let's see what we can do about that,' she thought.

Before she spoke, Deidre took a deep breath and composed herself. "Ma'am, we were waiting for an excuse to move in on Gotham City, and this is as good as any. We can now get on the ground and hunt the Batman down with impunity."

Waller glanced up from the selection of nail polish bottles that she was looking over on her desk. "The Batman, yes," she said, looking distracted. "Um, it's just that I've got this charity event, and then I'm going on FOX News, and then MSNBC…or was it MSNBC and _then_ FOX?"

Deidre saw her opening, and she took it. "If you'd prefer, Ma'am. I would be more than happy to personally handle the Gotham City situation for you."

Waller thought it over for a moment, then nodded. "Yes, that would work very well for me."

Deidre handed Waller the tablet computer that she carried, which already had the forms needed for Deidre to take command of the Gotham City operation. Waller looked it over, then signed it. "Thank you, Deidre. I don't know what I'd do without you."

"Thank _you_, Ma'am, for giving me this opportunity."

"Keep me updated on the hunt," Waller said absently, as she went back to choosing what nail polish to wear.

Deidre smiled as she walked back to her office. Finally, after all this time, she would be taking her proper vengeance against the Batman for taking down Cadmus. Eventually, Deidre wanted to hunt down all of the freaks who were in that group that attacked the Cadmus base in Indiana. But since Batman had been the leader, since he had personally assaulted General Hardcastle, then that made the Dark Knight the very first target in her long quest for revenge.

Once inside her office, Deidre closed the door and then pulled out her special cell phone, which encrypted every call she received and sent. When she hit a special button, the phone automatically dialed a number for her.

"Yes, Ma'am?" a man's voice said on the other end.

"This is Red Queen," Deidre said, using her code name as the leader of the Cadmus force within the OHMR. "We are a go for Gotham. I say again: we are a _go_ for Gotham City. It's bat hunting time, boys!"

**To Be Continued...**


	8. Chapter 8

_My thanks to stargaze29 for the kind words. I'd also like to thank those of you who have favored either me, or this story._

**Batman & Benson 8**

**Chapter Eight**

"Well, Mr. Connors," Sam said, as she entered the interrogation room. She took a seat across from him at the table. "Looks like you had a busy night."

Ralph Connors just smiled at her as he made a cupping gesture at one of his ears with his cuffed hands. "Can't hear you!" he said, speaking louder than was necessary. "My ears got blown out by the explosion!"

"You've been checked at the hospital, Mr. Connors," Sam told him, making sure to enunciate her words. "And your hearing isn't permanently damaged. It will come back."

"My what will do what?" Connors said with a big grin. "Sorry Detective, but I'm not able to answer any questions right now." He did a double take at her ID. "Samantha Spade? Sam Spade? Your parents really had a great sense of humor."

"You also have a great sense of humor if you think you can just laugh off this arrest," Sam said. "You're in a great deal of trouble, Mr. Connors. You're facing at least thirty kidnapping charges, as well as being charged with the extensive damage to the Showcase Square Mall. Any help that you could give me now would go a long way to helping your own case."

"You want to get to first base with me?" Connors looked shocked. "Why, Detective Spade, isn't that sexual harassment?"

Sam sat back in the chair with an annoyed sigh. She knew for a fact that Connors' hearing wasn't _that_ badly damaged; the doctor at the hospital so much as told her so. He could hear her just fine. "Is this how you want to play it, Mr. Connors?"

Connor just smiled pleasantly at her. "Yes, it is a nice day, isn't it, Detective Spade?"

There was a sharp knock at the door, and Sam got up and left the interrogation room. When she emerged into the adjoining observation room, she saw Gordon standing there with Harvey and Renée.

"The bastard wants to be cute, fine," Gordon said. He nodded at Harvey. "Rough him up. See how he likes that."

The broad smile on Harvey's face showed he was only too eager to play rough with the suspect. "It'll be my pleasure, commish."  
Sam stayed in the observation room and watched with Renée and Gordon as Harvey proceeded to storm into the interrogation room, pick up Connors by his collar and haul him up against the wall.

"Ya think you're real smart, huh?" Harvey bellowed in Connors' face. "Ya think you got us by the shorthairs, here? But lemme tell ya something: before you got a 'get outa jail' card a few days ago, you wuz facing charges of kidnapping Barbara Gordon. You know who she is? The daughter of my boss, Commissioner Gordon. I know Barbara personally, I watched her grow up; we all did here, at police headquarters. We all love and care for that kid, just like she wuz our own! So if you think you're gonna get an easy ride by acting all smart and sassy, you got another thing coming, bucko. Because _I'd_ love nothing more than going a few rounds with you, right here and right now. And I know of at least a dozen more cops right outside that door who would gladly do the same."

"Oooo, big tough guy," Connors said through gritted teeth. "Did you practice this 'bad cop' routine in the mirror?"

That set Harvey right off. He punched Connors in the stomach, then slammed his head back against the wall.

Sam ran back into the interrogation room with Renée and Gordon, who commanded Harvey to stop his assault on Connors. Harvey reluctantly released Connors, who, despite having been worked over, stood there with a broad grin on his face. "Wait a second," Connors said, as he gazed at Gordon, Sam and Renée. "Shouldn't only one of you be the 'good cop'? Or have the rules changed since the last time I was in here?"

"You think this is funny?" Gordon asked, looking livid. "You're facing enough charges here that will put you away for life! Unless you really want to do time like that, then you'd better start talking, right now. Give me the name of your boss, the one who hired Bane."

Connors slowly and calmly pulled out the chair from the table and sat back down. Then he just shook his head and said, "I want my lawyer. And I ain't saying shit to you, or anybody else, until you get him here."

Gordon glared at him for such a long while, that Sam was afraid _he'd_ attack Connors. But, to her relief, Gordon just nodded and then left the room. "Harvey, Renée, with me," he said. "Sam, stay with Mr. Tough Guy, here."

"Yes, sir," Sam said. When the door closed, leaving her alone with Connors, Sam leaned up against the far wall and stared at him with her arms crossed.

"Sam Spade," Connors said with a wistful smile, "the stuff dreams are made of."

Sam just made a disgusted face. It was bad enough to be busted about being named after the main character from The Maltese Falcon by her fellow cops, but it was really annoying when a piece of scum like Connors starts misquoting lines from the film at her. "You having fun? Good. Seriously, you should enjoy this little moment, because I can guarantee that your life will be a living hell from this point onward."

"Unless I talk."

Sam nodded. A small part of her hoped she was able to reach him and get him to talk about his boss. "You'll only be making it much easier on yourself."

Connors glanced down at the table. "Say a guy works for another guy. And I'm speaking purely hypothetically, here."

Sam walked over to the table and took a seat across from him. "I'm listening."

"The guy that he works for is a very nasty man. He spends his time going after drug dealers who live in fortresses in the jungle that are guarded by private armies of bodyguards and mercenaries. And this guy, this very nasty guy, he cuts through these bodyguards and mercenaries like they were nothing. And when he finds the drug dealer, he rips his heart right out of his chest. And I'm _not_ exaggerating here, he literally rips the still-beating heart right out of his victims. Tell me, would _you_ cross a guy like that?"

"We can protect you."

Connors barked out laughter. "Can you protect the Batman, Sam Spade? Because that's who this very nasty guy is going after now. Maybe _you're_ the one who should enjoy the moment, because Batman's days are numbered. And once that happens, you Gotham City cops will have to start working for a living. Mark my words: the Bat is going down. And there's nobody in the world who can stop it."

Sam uneasily stared back at Connors as a chill swept up her spine.

**B&B**

An extremely furious Dr. Jason Rayne impatiently went through the five security checkpoints within Arkham Asylum before finally entering the special interview room. It was an interview room that had been designed and built to contain only one inmate for interrogation at Arkham. Rayne knew it well, because, as the administrator at Arkham, he'd helped design it.

The Joker sat in a chair behind a Plexiglas wall, completely strapped in and clad in a straightjacket. Five burly security guards, all clad in fully armored riot gear, stood warily around him.

"Evening, Jay," the Joker casually said. "Why are you here on a Saturday night? Forget your keys?"

"What's your game?!" an enraged Rayne shouted at the maniac through the Plexiglas.

The Joker grew thoughtful. "My game? Well, I've always been partial to naked Twister. But, since I've been in here, I find that I'm happy with a good round of Go Fish."

"Stop it!" Rayne angrily said. "You know full well what I'm talking about! I've just been told that you asked to speak with Amanda Waller. Why?"

"I have something to tell her, something that she might find useful."

"Very well. Tell me, and then I'll pass it on to her."

The Joker's ruby red lips parted into the grotesque smile that he was infamous for. "Now, now, Jay…you know I can't do that. Whatever information I have to pass onto the OHMR is private. It's for Mandy's ears only."

Rayne frowned. "Mandy?"

"That's what I call Amanda," the Joker replied, with a shy little shrug. "I'd like to think we're bosom buddies!"

"Then you can tell whatever you have to say to your 'bosom buddy' right here, in this interview room," Rayne said. "You're _not_ being taken out of Arkham Asylum, not for any damn reason!"

The Joker looked wounded. "Did you actually think that I had something unpleasant planned?! Why, Jay, I'm shocked! Nothing could be further from the truth! I've been such a good little boy under your loving tutelage, haven't I?"

Rayne turned to the commander of the guards who surrounded the Joker and said, "Get him back to his cell, and watch him carefully."

The Joker let out a dry little giggle as two of the guards freed his legs and body from the chair. Then, while he was still strapped up in the straightjacket, the Joker was hustled over to a wheelchair and then strapped into that.

"We really need to discuss this whole entourage treatment I'm given every time I leave and then go back to my cell," the Joker muttered, as he was being wheeled out of his side of the room. "It's really quite cumbersome, Jay!"

"Oh, don't count on it, you crazy bastard," Jason Rayne whispered, as he watched his men quickly hustle the most dangerous inmate in Arkham Asylum back to his cell. "We know what you're capable of in here."

And yet, despite the fact that he had done everything right by insisting the meeting between the Joker and Waller be held right here, within the fortified stronghold that was Arkham, Jason Rayne still couldn't shake the uneasy feeling that this was exactly what the Joker wanted.

**B&B**

When Olivia, Alex and Rachel showed up at Gordon's office late Saturday night (technically, at one o'clock, it was early Sunday morning), they already saw that Montoya and Bullock were there, waiting for them with Gordon. Olivia had checked in on a still-sleeping Jonah before she had left. She was more than content to leave him in the safety of Wayne Manor, under the watchful eye of Alfred. Jordan was also spending the night at the Manor because she planned to do some investigative legwork in with Alex first thing tomorrow. Bruce and Barbara were still on patrol.

Rachel, who had nervously watched every aspect of the battle between Batman and Bane on the news earlier, now eagerly looked around in the shadowy corners of Gordon's office for the Batman, but could not see him.

"Frank Connors won't talk," Gordon said, with a look of annoyance. "We threw every trick we had at him, too. But nothing."

"He also clamed up when we busted him for the Manbat case," Harvey added. "He's sure as hell ain't gonna sing now."

"If he's truly working for this Bane bozo, then he won't talk," Renée said. "Harvey and I just recently looked over the files on Bane, and some of the things he's done are downright scary."

But Harvey dismissed it with a wave of his hand. "He's just another Meta who went bad. Sure, the bad ones always seem scary. But they're really nothing more than thugs."

"If Connors was part of the Manbat gang," Olivia said, as she and Alex took a seat on the couch. "Then it stands to reason that James Varlis is his sugar daddy."

"It had to have been Varlis who got Connors and the other Manbat team members out of jail," Alex said. "And Varlis hiring Bane to go after the Batman also tracks. He would want revenge against the Batman."

"Revenge for what?" Harvey asked.

"For the scandal that lost Varlis his job," a dark voice muttered from the shadows.

"Batman, glad you're here, and that you're all right," Gordon said, as the familiar dark figure emerged into the light.

Olivia noted that Rachel had a relieved look on her face when she saw him. Knowing her, she would love nothing more than to embrace Batman tightly right now, but that would be a little awkward. Yet Rachel looked content just to see that the Batman looked ok.

"Pretty wild night tonight, huh, Bats?" Harvey asked. "Hey, what do ya mean about Varlis wanting revenge for that scandal?"

"I realized I couldn't take him down legally, since there wasn't enough evidence to indict him as being the mastermind behind the Manbat program," Batman explained. "So I did the next best thing and removed him from his seat of power."

"So you were behind the big exposé that ended his political career?" Renée asked, surprised. "Very nice, job!"

"It was my idea, but I wasn't the one who collected the evidence," Batman said. "That was done by an acquaintance of mine."

"Yeah, but it looks like getting Varlis fired from his job wasn't enough, because he's now gunning for you, big time," Harvey taunted him. "And with a very big gun."

"True. But whenever one shoots a very large gun, they must be wary of the recoil," Batman replied.

"What do you mean by that?" Olivia asked.

Batman turned to Rachel. "Who told you to drop the matter when you began making a fuss concerning the Manbat team being released from jail, Ms. Dawes?"

"The Attorney General himself," she said.

Batman nodded. "Who no doubt released the men as a favor to Varlis. And what do you think the attorney general's reaction will be when he finds out that Frank Connors, one of the group of men that were released under his authority, is now implicated in _another_ crime?"

"Ooooo!" Olivia smiled up at the Batman. "That's going to be one pissed off Attorney General!"

"We still might not be able to legally connect Varlis to Bane," Batman said, "but Varlis himself will be under a lot of pressure himself very soon. And that pressure may help us."

"How?" Gordon asked.

"Varlis is obviously the moneyman behind Bane, and once he feels the full force of the attorney general's might coming down on him, he won't be able to keep funding Bane's operations here for very long. So we let Varlis sweat out the feds while we keep the pressure on Bane and his group."

"I've already assigned Harvey and Renée to special duty," Gordon told him. "They've been working to track down the whereabouts of the Manbat crew."

"Good move, Jim."

"Well, I did this before I knew the Manbat boys were going to cause more trouble," Gordon admitted. "But now that they've become a major threat in Gotham City once more, Renée and Harvey will now have the resources of the entire MCS at their disposal."

"I like the sound of that," Harvey said with a grin.

Olivia also liked what she was hearing. "And if we apply enough pressure on all fronts, this might well cripple Bane's efforts here in Gotham City."

"If this works, we may even be able to arrest Bane _and_ Varlis," Rachel said hopefully, "without there being any further need for violence!"

She glanced up at Batman and added, "Won't _that_ be a nice change of…?"

When she heard Rachel stop suddenly, Olivia had already realized that the Batman was gone. "Disappeared again, huh?" Olivia asked, as she glanced up at the empty air where the Batman had stood.

"Probably had to go back to his belfry," Harvey muttered. Then, when he saw the annoyed looks that that comment got him, Harvey just shrugged and added, "Or not! Hey, whatever…ya know?!"

**B&B**

"Welcome to McHenry Air Force Base," the imposing looking Air Force officer said, as the team began to descend the ramp of the C-130 cargo plane. "Colonel Lawrence Greenway, at your service."

Deidre shook the Colonel's hand. "Deidre Clevenger, OHMR. I'm the special agent in charge of this operation. I was told you would be expecting us, Colonel."

"Yes indeed, ma'am," Greenway said, as he gazed at the large cargo containers that were being quickly offloaded from the plane. "Is that computer equipment? The reason I ask is that you are more than welcome to use our facilities for whatever you need."

"Thanks, but there's armored suits in those cases, for my OHMR strike team," Deidre replied. "They're the new Mark III suits, fresh out of the R&D proving grounds."

Greenway smiled at that. "Good to see you're coming in well-armed. You're going to need it to finally take down the Batman, once and for all."

But Deidre shook her head. "We're federally mandated to deal with any major outbreak of meta violence, Colonel. We're moving into Gotham City to help contain the situation at the mall."

"Yes, ma'am, I understand. And should Batman happen to get in your way, then I'm sure your armored strike team will deal with him."

Deidre gazed coolly at him. Greenway so much as stated what their true purpose in Gotham City was, and he didn't appear to be too broken up about it. She wondered about him. "Are you a patriotic man, Colonel?"

"That I am, Ms. Clevenger; a patriot through and through."

"The reason I ask is that there's a great deal of confusion these days as to what makes a true patriot. For instance, many people would consider General Hardcastle to be a traitor."

"I'm not one of them. I believe that General Hardcastle, and the brave people of Cadmus, were unsung heroes. And the day shall come when they will all be exonerated. Whatever you and your team need, Ms. Clevenger, just ask for it. But be sure to ask either me, or Major Wilson, directly. I'm afraid that the rest of my command staff does not share our views."

"You mean they would rather let the metas take over the world from us?"

"Sadly, Ma'am, yes. Like all meta-lovers, they are misguided and lost." He shook his head. "If only they realize that Cadmus was simply trying to save the human race, they would have been fighting alongside them, instead of allowing that great organization to be so shamefully dismantled."

Deidre nodded in satisfaction. It looked as if the Colonel would truly be a very valuable ally. "Thank you for all of your help, Colonel Greenway. And, fear not, for Cadmus still lives on, and it's still fighting…this time, in Gotham City."

When the implications of what she had just said sunk in, Greenway took her hand and shook it firmly. "Ms. Clevenger, you do not know how very happy that makes me."

When her cell rang, Deidre excused herself to answer it. The text message was from Waller, and it informed Deidre that the Joker had sent a request to speak with her. _Since you're already in Gotham, would you handle this for me, as well? _Waller had written in the text. _Thanks so much, Deidre. _

'The Joker?' Deidre thought. Then a broad smile spread across her face.

David Marks, the commander of the strike team and her overall second in command, walked up to her. When he noted her smile, he said, "What is it?"

"An interesting new development," Deidre said, indicating the text from Waller. "And it couldn't have happened at a better time!"

**B&B**

Robin returned home, which was in this case actually Chloe and Lana's home in Metropolis, via the roof. Although it was still dark, he quickly stepped inside the condo, lest he was seen entering the place by somebody.

'A big change from Wayne Manor,' he thought, 'which is out in the country, and where we could come and go pretty much whenever we wanted without worrying about being seen.'

Robin smiled at the sight of Chloe, who sat slumped back on the sofa, sound asleep. She was clad only in an oversized t-shirt with the picture of Miniokyo from K-On on the front. The TV was on with the sound low. She had been waiting up for him, even after he had told her to go get some rest.

Unable to find a blanket, Robin removed the cape from his outfit and gently draped it over Chloe's bare legs.

He glanced over to see Lana standing there with a smile. She was barefoot, and clad in a powder blue matching ensemble of a cotton shirt and pants. With a nod of her head towards Chloe, she whispered, "She won't go to bed…not unless you're right there with her."

"I know." Dick removed his Robin mask and glanced back at the woman he loved with concern. He knew that she was still grieving over Clark, they all were. But he was still worried about Chloe, about her emotional wellbeing.

Yet when he looked back at Lana, it abruptly occurred to him that he could actually _see_ her. Then he further remembered that the TV was also on. "Hey, we have power…."

Lana nodded with a grin. "Nice to be back in the 21st century again."

"Is it everybody? The whole city?"

"No, just our block for now." Lana glanced down at his utility belt. "What's that?"

Dick nodded as he removed the handheld device from his belt. "We were just about to call it a night with our patrol when we came across this bunch of would-be super villains who were being led by a woman that called herself Dollface. They were breaking into a bank…or trying to, at least."

"Dollface?" Lana said with an odd look.

"And before you ask, yeah, she had a giant face of a doll that she wore over her head. It had two little pony tails, cherry red cheeks, a happy little smile, and these huge, dead, doll eyes that stared out at nothing."

"How was she able to see?"

"She couldn't. While we were mopping up the floor with her henchmen, she would just peer out the bottom of the head and start screaming 'That's not fair! Not fair!' at us the whole time. She was even stamping her feet! Starfire finally shut her up with a stray bolt."

Lana looked shocked. "She was stamping her feet? How old was she?"

"Twenty-something. She was an adult, but was acting like a little kid, or a little girl doll," Dick replied with a shrug. "She was the sort of psychopath who was more like somebody that Batman and I would face in Gotham City, not here."

Lana looked startled just then. "Oh, that reminds me. I meant to tell you this: Batman fought a major battle in Gotham tonight."

"He did? Against who?"

"Somebody called Bane," Lana said. She carefully watched his expression. "Have you heard of him?"

Dick shook his head. "No. Do you know what happened?"

"Come on, I recorded the newscast for you."

When Lana switched on the TV set in the kitchen and replayed the news item for him, Dick was astounded to see the amount of damage that the Showcase Square Mall had suffered.

"They said Batman battled Bane in the food court," Lana said. "And the Tumbler took on a group of armed men in the mall itself."

Yet before Dick could watch more, Chloe charged right at him and hugged him tightly. He gratefully returned the affection. Although he didn't want to wake her before, Dick was now very happy to see her.

When she looked up at him, her eyes were still dazed from lack of sleep. "Come to bed?"

"In a second, babe, Lana's showing me what's going down in Gotham City," he replied.

Lana resumed the video that she'd recorded. Dick grinned fondly as he watched footage from a news chopper of the one-sided battle between a group of armed men and the Tumbler. Knowing that Batman was fighting with Bane, Dick realized that Barbara had to have been in the Tumbler. He then laughed loudly when he saw that the battle had literally brought down the roof of that section of the mall.

"Oh, if I know Babs, she's gotta be mortified at that!" Dick said, still chuckling. "What did Bane have to say for himself when they brought him into central booking?"

Lana shook her head. "They didn't. He got away, as did his men."

That wiped the smile right off of Dick's face. That was when he realized that this Bane guy might not be another super villain wannabe loser. "Did they say why he attacked the mall?"

"To call out the Batman for a fight," Lana replied.

"They're saying on the news that Bane is different than the other super villains that Batman fought," Chloe said. "He's been sending threatening messages to the Batman."

"Until now, the only super villain who openly dares Batman to come after him is the Joker, and that madman's in a league of evil all his own," Dick said with concern.

'This sounds serious,' he thought. 'I should be there. I should be back home in Gotham City.'

Chloe stared at the device that he held in his hand. "What're you doing with that?"

"Caught this on a thug I fought tonight," he replied. "He was part of a gang who were trying to rob a bank."

She took it from him and examined it. Then Chloe gave him a stunned expression. "You fought Inter-Gang?!"

"What?! No, I took that off of some idiot who was working for a second-rater who called herself Dollface."

"Metropolis has been crawling with every conceivable super villain wannabe lately," Lana said with disgust. "Ever since…."

Lana abruptly glanced down at the floor. She couldn't even bring herself to even mention Clark's death. Dick felt for her.

Chloe carefully examined the device on both sides, then nodded. "This is definitely Inter-Gang tech. It's originally designed to open a boom tube. But it looks like somebody modified it into a turbo-charged taser."

"How powerful is it?" Dick asked her.

Chloe looked alarmed. "Very! Guys, this thing is extremely dangerous! It's like finding a stray nuclear bomb on the streets! If there are more of these on the streets, then we're in a lot of trouble."

Dick thought back to some other dark days in the history of Metropolis. Inter-Gang were a cadre of human soldiers who were loyal to Darkseid. They served as his personal, fanatical bodyguards during that very scary time back when Darkseid had tried to take over the world by making Metropolis his beachhead. When Superman finally defeated Darkseid and sent him packing, Inter-Gang remained behind to cause more trouble with their high-tech gadgets.

"Inter-Gang was supposed to have been in decline these past few years," Lana said. "When they joined forces with Magneto's Brotherhood of Mutants and attacked the police convention here in town, that was largely considered by everybody to be Inter-Gang's last gasp."

"You said it yourself, Lana," Chloe softly said. She carefully placed the weapon on the counter. "This city's been besieged by every conceivable wacko since…Clark's death. Maybe Inter-Gang has decided the time is right for them to come back."

Chloe shuddered violently just then, holding in a sob. Even Lana looked like she was about to burst into tears. 'And why shouldn't they?' Dick thought. 'Clark's death was still so recent. We're all saddened by it. But for Chloe and Lana, who knew him so personally, it's still a raw, open wound for them.'

Dick gently pulled the both of them close to him in a comforting, brotherly hug, and when he did this, they both gave in to their tears. As he held them in his muscular arms and soothed them as best he could, Dick glanced over at the TV, which still showed images of the knocked-out, dragged-out battle between Batman and this Bane moron. As much as he missed his family and home, he was still needed here.

'Hope you guys can manage without me in Gotham for a few days longer,' Dick thought.

**B&B**

It had turned out to be a chilly, overcast Sunday morning in Gotham City; not that Bane really noticed the weather. Unless it was too bad or so extreme enough to directly affect the outcome of their mission, he paid little heed to the weather.

He had far more important things to do.

Like rescuing one of their own.

They were riding in the massive SUV through the nearly empty streets of midtown Gotham City. Braddock drove, and he kept the car under the speed limit as he weaved in and out of the side streets, until they had reached their destination: the Gotham City Holding Jail.

And just like they had figured, the armored bus was parked outside, taking on prisoners to deliver to the county jail.

"'Gotham City corrections department never takes a day off!'" Braddock derisively muttered, repeating what he said Captain Walter Piedmont had once told him back when he was in the slammer.

"Yeah, I really hope Piedmont's out today," Kruse said from the back. "I'd love to bash in that old fart's head with the butt of my rifle."

"Just stay focused on finding Ralph," Bane said.

"He might already be aboard the bus," Jugsy pointed out. "They've just finished loading."

"Park in front of it," Bane told Braddock. "Block them in."

"They may not respond well to that," Braddock warned.

"Leave that to me," Bane said.

Once Braddock pulled the SUV right up in front of the bus, Bane hit the hidden button on his vest, which released the newly reworked Venom into his system. The feeling was both shocking as it was fantastic. Bane could instantly feel the increased potency of the Venom that coursed through his bloodstream. Deanna had done a remarkable job.

Now it was time for Bane to do his.

He got out of the passenger door and momentarily stood staring at a cop who'd come over to order them to move their car. The cop stopped and stared wide-eyed at Bane's massive form for a split second, then his hand reached for his gun.

But before the cop could grab the gun, Bane grabbed him by the neck, lifted him off the ground, and flung him across the sidewalk, where he was bashed into the concrete wall of the Holding Jail.

Bane then ran around the front of the bus. The driver, seeing him, had shut the armored door. But Bane grabbed the door with his gloved hands and ripped it off of its hinges. He held it in his hands, using it as a shield, as the driver opened fire on him with his gun. Bane flinched when he felt several slugs hit him in the back of his bulletproof vest.

He threw the door in at the driver, the heavy armored metal badly smashing up the man in his seat and taking him out of the fight. Bane was about to spin around and deal with whoever was shooting at his back, until he saw Braddock and the others emerge from the car with their automatic weapons blazing, providing ample cover fire for him.

This allowed Bane to continue inside the bus, where the prisoners sat within a large metal cage that separated them from the driver. The chained men, who all wore orange, were yelling at him in a panic…all save for one: Ralph Connors just sat there with an amazed look on his face.

"Did you really think we'd leave you?" Bane asked him, as he easily ripped the door of the cage open.

"Well, I admit, there were moments when I had my doubts," Ralph said.

He offered up his chained hands, which Bane had effortlessly freed by pinching the chains loose with his fingers.

Yet before he left the bus with Ralph, Bane stopped long enough to face the other prisoners. "My name is Bane, and this man works for me. This is how I repay loyalty to me. I stand by my men, and they stand by me. Who among you here would like to join me?"

"You killing the Batman, ain't you?" a guy shouted from the back.

"I am."

"Yo, jeffe," a bald Latino man said in front. He held up his chained wrists. "Count me in."

Bane quickly went around and freed all of the men on the bus, which amounted to about twenty. Yet when he turned to walk back out into the firefight, they were hesitant to do so.

"Wait a minute, man, there's a war going on out there!" a convict angrily yelled from the back. "You don't expect us to just walk out into that, do ya?"

"I expect to meet you by the black SUV within twenty seconds," Bane told them. "Think of it as a tryout, my amigos. Those of you who make it will be worthy enough to join my gang."

"You crazy, man! I ain't going out in that!"

"Then I hope you enjoy your stay in jail," Bane said, as he grabbed the armored door and used it as a shield for himself and Ralph.

Once Ralph and the others were safely back in the SUV, Bane then flung the armored door at a group of police, who all scattered. That gave him enough of a lull in the gunfire to reach for a GCPD patrol car and flip it on its side, which provided even more cover for them.

Bane had to admit that he felt bloody marvelous. The Venom that coursed through his veins made him feel completely and gloriously invincible. He almost wished that the police had put up more of a fight.

When Bane got back into the SUV. Braddock did a double take at the three orange-clad convicts who had gotten in the cargo section. "Who the hell are these guys?!"

"New recruits," Bane said. He had noted that, out of the twenty men in the bus, only these three had made it. "Now drive."

Braddock quickly pulled the SUV out of the war zone that had erupted around the bus, then down the street, and then down a side street.

"Welcome back, kid!" Mo said, as he gave Ralph a clap on the shoulder. "You look good in orange, man."

"Yeah, he looks downright fetching, don't he?" Kruse said jokingly. "You must have been really popular in the showers, huh, Ralphie, boy?"

"I never took any frigging showers in there," Ralph said, a wave of relief on his face. "You guys saved me from that."

"Don't ever say we never done anything for you," Jugsy chimed in, to much laughter.

Braddock had pulled the SUV into a shopper's parking lot, which was mostly empty this early on a Sunday. He turned to Bane and asked, "What now?"

"We get a new set of wheels," Bane told him. The sense of exhilaration he felt right now was extraordinary. The Venom had never felt this good.

They got out of the SUV, which was riddled with bullets, and chose a minivan of equal size. Once he got the door opened, Mo went to work on hotwiring the minivan. The three extra convicts stood waiting along with the rest of them.

"Hey, you guys can take off," Kruse told them.

But one of the convicts, the bald one who referred to Bane as jeffe on the bus, shook his head. "We're coming with you, man."

"What?" Kruse stared in puzzlement at Bane. "You all right with this?"

"He said they were new recruits," Braddock replied. He glanced at Bane. "What gives, here?"

"If we're going to kill the Batman, then we need more men," Bane told him.

Braddock looked shocked. "You clear this with Varlis?"

"Think of it as an executive decision," Bane said, "one that I made on the spot."

Braddock shared an uneasy look with Mo, Kruse, Jugsy and Ralph. "How the hell are you paying these guys? Because it sure as shit ain't coming out of _my_ share…."

"Damn straight," Kruse seconded.

"How am I going to pay them," Bane muttered, as he eyed the back door of a jewelry store. "Let me show you how."

He hit the hidden button on his vest, which sent another livewire surge of Venom into his system, just as he entered the back door of the jewelry store. The door was bolted shut, but that did not stop Bane, who tore it off of its hinges. He then bashed open the glass counters by using the head of the jewelry store owner, who had tried to stop him with a baseball bat.

When the jewelry store owner's wife pulled out a handgun and started screaming hysterically that she would shoot Bane if he did not put her husband down, he casually back-handed her. The blow sent her careening into the opposite counter, where she lay very still with her eyes still open. Bane threw the dead husk of her husband over so that he lay on the floor next to her, both of their eyes staring lifelessly up at the ceiling.

The men were already piling into the mini-van when Bane emerged with the handfuls of jewelry. As he got into the mini-van and dumped the jewelry into Ralph's lap, Bane plucked one piece of jewelry, a necklace, from the pile.

"You the MAN, jeffe!" the bald convict said from the back. Bane noted with humor that they had been regulated to the cargo section of this new ride, as well. "Straight up! I mean it, bro, you da MAN!"

"SHUT UP!" Kruse shouted at him. He turned to Bane and asked, "Has there been a change of plans, here?"

'This will be for Deanna,' Bane thought, as he admired the glittering necklace. 'She has done an outstanding job in increasing the potency of the Venom. Thanks to her, there is truly nothing that I can't do now.'

"We are still on mission to kill the Batman," he told his men. "But I am already thinking ahead…to what lies beyond the Batman's death."

"Which is?" Braddock asked.

"It has been a while since Gotham City has had a proper crime lord," Bane said thoughtfully. "I think I would be perfectly suited for that vocation, don't you?"

**To be continued...**


	9. Chapter 9

_My thanks to stargaze29 for the review._

**Batman & Benson 8**

**Chapter Nine**

The planet Malabar was a peace-loving agrarian society with minimal technology, save for that held by the Witness. The Witness was a priest-like Malabarian whose job it was to record the history of his race. He lived within a specially-made temple set within the mountain range that lay just beyond Aroga, the largest and main habitat on the planet.

While it took J'onn and the others some time to first find out about this historian through interviewing the local Malabarians, once they were alerted to his presence, and the fact that he had personally witnessed the battle between the Planet Slayer and their local heroic warrior, Green Lantern made short work of finding this recluse within his mountain top home.

The Witness had no name, other than his title. Like all Malabarians, he had pale purple skin with large obsidian eyes that were set within a small head upon a long, slender neck. He welcomed J'onn and the others, and was only too happy to speak of the Battle.

J'onn found it intriguing how The Witness spoke of the Planet Slayer as if he were a force of nature, like a tornado, or a hurricane. Valspar, the legendary warrior of the Malabarians, agreed to do battle with the Planet Slayer in a one-on-one contest to the death, where Valspar lost.

"The Planet Slayer left you after the battle?" Wonder Woman asked, amazed.

The Witness nodded. "Yes, as per the agreement. Valspar fought for all of us, and he willingly gave his soul in the end so that ours would be spared."

J'onn was struck at the term that The Witness used to describe the death of Valspar: he willingly gave his soul.

"Do you know where the Planet Slayer comes from, originally?" Captain Marvel asked.

"Only from beyond the stars," The Witness replied. He held out his flippers and added, "Would you like to see the battle? Link up, and I shall show you."

J'onn and Wonder Woman took the flippers on either side of The Witness, then J'onn took Green Lantern's hand, while Wonder Woman took Captain Marvel's.

J'onn instantly found himself transported back in time to the place of the battle between Valspar and the Planet Slayer, who was also known on earth as Doomsday. The major thing that struck J'onn was how much smaller the crystals all over Doomsday's body were. 'This must be when he was younger,' J'onn thought.

Yet, when he watched as Doomsday had slain Valspar, J'onn was taken aback at how the crystals on Doomsday's body had grown in size. Not only that, they also glowed briefly. 'I was wrong, the size of Doomsday's crystals do not indicate his age,' J'onn realized.

When they released hands and emerged from the psychic recollection that was projected by The Witness, J'onn said, "The crystals on Doomsday were much smaller just before the battle, yet afterwards, upon Valspar's death, they grew in size and also glowed."

"I thought the glowing was a reflection of the sunlight," Wonder Woman said.

"No, J'onn's right," Green Lantern confirmed. "They glowed brightly on their own, just after the battle."

"Why did they increase in size?" Captain Marvel asked. "To replace lost or damaged crystals?"

"No," The Witness said. "The crystals grow in size so that the Planet Slayer may accept Valspar's soul, which is as mighty as he was."

J'onn did a double take at that. "You're saying that Doomsday, the Planet Slayer, eats the souls of those whom he kills?"

The Witness nodded. "Yes. This is how it has been for centuries."

"Has the Planet Slayer been to Malabar before?" Wonder Woman asked.

"Many centuries ago, when he fought Calabar, the Mighty," The Witness replied. He held out his flippers once more. "Although I was not born at that time, I still can show you that battle, because it has been mentally passed down through the Witnesses of the ages."

Watching the battle between Doomsday and Calabar, J'onn was amazed to see how much smaller and slender Doomsday was at that time. The crystals on his body were not the big, bulky lumps of rock-like shards that he had today.

"This might be how Doomsday has survived all these centuries," J'onn said excitedly, after the battle. "He's living off of the souls, the life-force, of those whom he killed in battle."

But Wonder Woman did not look impressed. "In what way does any of this help us?"

"If Superman's life-force is trapped within the crystals on Doomsday's body, then if we can somehow free it," J'onn started to say.

"…then Superman might be revived," Green Lantern finished, also now sounding excited.

"You mean, Superman may not actually be dead?" an amazed Captain Marvel asked.

"There is only one way to find out for sure," J'onn told him.

"If this is true," Wonder Woman said thoughtfully, "then the path for us is now clear: we must find Doomsday, and, if need be, rip Superman's soul from his very throat."

**B&B**

"No, no, no," Jason Rayne muttered, as he brought his car to a screeching halt outside of Arkham Asylum. He left it running as he ran up the steps and into the main lobby, where Reggie Newland, the head of security for the institution for the criminally insane, greeted him. "What happened, Reggie?"

"We had no choice, Dr. Rayne," Reggie said, looking very sheepish.

Rayne stopped walking long enough to glare at him. "What happened, Reggie," he asked again.

"They took him," Reggie replied.

"You let them take the Joker?" Rayne said in a horrified whisper. "Are you insane? I thought I made it clear that if anybody wanted to talk to the Joker, that they would do so right here, within the confines of Arkham!"

"I know, sir." Reggie just shook his head. "But like I said before, we had no choice. They came in here with an army of guys, all clad in fully armored suits. When I told them about your standing order, they replied that Waller was too important a person to come to Arkham. They demanded that we allow them to take the Joker with them, or else we would all be arrested for hindering a federal investigation."

"God damn it!" Rayne said bitterly. Whoever these clowns were, they knew what they were doing. They stormed into Arkham early on a Sunday, when there would be minimal senior staff on hand. It was just a simple matter for them to bully the guards into doing their bidding. "Who were they?"

"OHMR agents, sir."

"The goddamned OHMR," Rayne muttered with a disgusted sigh, as he pulled out his mobile phone. "And here I thought Cadmus was bad news…."

"You gonna try and talk them into bringing the Joker back, sir?" Reggie asked.

"No, I'm calling Jim Gordon," Rayne replied. "He needs to be advised that the Joker is on the loose once more."  
"I really wouldn't worry about the Joker getting loose, sir," Reggie said. "I mean, these OHMR guys were armed to the teeth! You should have seen them, they looked like they were ready for World War Three. There's no way that the Joker could mess with these guys."

"Reggie, you're forgetting something very important here," Rayne wearily said. "This is the Joker we're talking about. He's a special class of monster, all in a league of his own. And despite all the guns and heavy armor those OHMR agents may have had, they were already dead men the moment they strolled out the door with him. They just didn't know it yet."

**B&B**

"Nice day for a drive, huh?"

The three armored troopers who sat across from him never said a word. It was hard for him to even read their expressions, since their faces were hidden by helmets with these owl-like goggles that peered an unblinking cold blue at him. They all rode in the back of a large black SUV through the streets of Gotham City on this early Sunday morning.

But the Joker really wasn't expecting a reply from these men. The idle banter he made was to simply soften them up. The more foolish he made himself look by cracking wise with silly jokes, the more he hoped it would make these silent sentinels drop their guard.

And then the Joker would strike.

He had already worked himself loose from his bonds. His arms were free underneath the straightjacket, which now served to hide the fact that he was loose from his captors. He was now using his own straightjacket against his captors.

'Gotta just love the little ironies that life throws at you,' the Joker thought, as one of his inhuman grins slid across his face.

"What's so goddamned funny, freak?" one of the armored troopers abruptly asked him. "Huh? What the hell are you smiling at?!"

'O-ho, sounds like this little soldier boy is feeling the pressure,' the Joker thought, as his grin became even more inhumanly wider. 'No matter. If I can't get them to drop their guard, then I'll gladly use their fear against them.'

"Don't let him get to you," one of the other armored troopers told his comrade. "That's how psychos like him get off; they work your nerves. Just ignore him. We'll be rid of him soon enough."

As he glanced out the window and saw a man in a trench coat and a fedora hat come running straight at the SUV at a full run, the Joker said, "Looks like you might be getting rid of me a lot sooner than you think, Roger Ramjet."

The man hit the side of the SUV, and in that moment, the Joker realized that he was a meta, because the SUV jerked violently from the man's full-on assault. The Joker was now grateful to have been strapped in with seat belts as the SUV he was in tumbled over from the blow delivered to it by the nondescript man with superhuman strength. The Joker knew firsthand what clothing felt like in a drier as the SUV rolled over several times before coming to a rest upside-down on what looked like the sidewalk.

The three armored stooges hadn't bother to strap themselves in, and they went head over ass all around him. The Joker realized that there would never be a better time than now.

And so he made his move.

He slipped his arms out of the straightjacket and undid his seat belt. Once he fell to the floor, which was actually the roof of the SUV, the Joker landed beside one of the armored troopers. He grabbed the man's knife, which was in a handy sheath on his belt, and then stuck the blade as far as the hilt into a slit between the man's facemask and his neck. The Joker had taken notice of this slit earlier, and mentally marked it as a good weak spot for him to use.

The armored trooper shook and staggered in shock as the Joker then pulled on the knife, cutting it across his neck. The blood that poured profusely from the slit between his neck and face mask was a thing of beauty. The man was already dead before he even collapsed to the floor. The Joker grabbed the dead man's gun and then shot his two armored companions dead before they even realized what was going on.

The Joker then gazed down at the dead man who had a problem with him earlier and whispered, "How do you like my smile, now, binky?"

He shot the door off of the side of the overturned SUV, and then gunned down three more OHMR troopers from another SUV who had stopped to help their comrades. The Joker glanced down at the heavy caliber assault weapon in his hands and nodded in satisfaction. "This'll do."

After collecting several more of the heavy assault guns, along with extra clips, from the other dead troopers, the Joker stood in the empty street and looked around for the trench coat-clad man with superpowers who had been such a big help in busting him out. But there was no sign of him. The big bruiser in the fedora was now long gone.

"How strange," the Joker said. "But then, that's Gotham City for you. It's one wild and wacky place…just my kind of town!"

The people living in that area were all fearfully awoken from their sleep by the wild peals of insane, hyena-like laughter that echoed through their once calm and quiet neighborhood.

**B&B**

"What the hell do you mean?" James Varlis roared into the phone. "Why can't I go back to my own home, Charles? What? The FBI are there? What the hell are the FBI doing at my house?!"

Maria listened intently as the man who had repeatedly violated her over the last several days now sounded as if he was about to get violated himself, but in a completely different way. She sat tied to a hardback chair, clad only in a skimpy teddy, with a ball gag having been shoved in her mouth. Varlis had quickly trussed her up here when he had received the phone call from his personal attorney. He had almost bound and gagged Maria in an absent-minded manner, as if she were nothing more than a toy that had been put away for now, while he dealt with more important matters.

From the sounds of the conversation coming in from the other room, it looked as if James Varlis had a lot on his plate right now. Varlis yelled, cajoled and pleaded with his attorney, but to no avail. This problem with the FBI agents would not go away. She'd heard Varlis complain bitterly that he would take this matter up with the Attorney General, who was a close personal friend of his…only to discover to his horror that it was the Attorney General himself who unleashed the FBI on him in the first place.

"Why do I have to turn myself in?" Varlis whined into the phone. "But I didn't know anything about what Frank Connors would do! How am I supposed to know that he would…wait, he escaped?! How? Bane broke him out of jail? No, Charles, I had nothing to do with that, either, I swear! Look, is there anyway for me to explain all of this to the Attorney General without surrendering myself? But you're my lawyer, Charles, surely you can think of something!"

As heartened as Maria was to hear her abuser was now facing some serious trouble of his own, she anxiously wondered what it meant for her. If Varlis was seriously facing criminal charges, would he keep her around? Maria was realistic enough to know that it would be better for Varlis if she were done away with, lest she wind up being yet another witness testifying at his trial.

'I have to get out of here,' she realized, 'now!'

Although she sat tied to a chair, the only part of her body that was actually tied to it were her feet, which were bound to the chair's front legs by the ankles. The legs of the chair were tapered at the bottom, which created some wiggle room that gave Maria some hope of escape.

She pressed her bare feet hard against the floor and pushed back with her weight, which lifted the chair off of the front legs. Then Maria wiggled and squirmed as she slowly slid her ankles off of the legs of the chair. When she sat forward again, the ropes were still around her ankles, but Maria was able to stand up free of the chair. Her wrists were still tied behind her back, and she was still ball-gagged, but at least she was now free to move around. But where would she go? She glanced out the window and realized that there was only one place for her to go.

'Outside,' she thought, as she ran towards the door. It was awkward unlocking the door with her hands behind her back, but considering the dire consequences for her if she remained a sex slave of James Varlis, this was a problem that Maria quickly overcame.

Once the door was opened, Maria ran outside onto the sidewalk in front of Varlis' townhouse. Barefoot, and clad as she was only in a skimpy teddy, the freezing November cold cut through her body like thousands of savage little knives.

"OH MY GOD!" a woman cried out.

Maria turned to see a woman walking on the sidewalk with her small children. Maria was never more happy to see this woman, who glared at her with a mixture of disgust and horror. Maria tried to ask for help, but the damned ball gag prevented anything she said from making any sense.

And so instead she just ran towards the woman, hoping that she would take Maria in her arms and….

"GET THE HELL AWAY FROM US!" the woman angrily shouted, as she pulled her children protectively by her side. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself, you stinking pervert!"

But Maria kept running towards the woman, shaking her head, trying to make her understand that she needed help. Yet the more she ran towards the woman and her children, the faster they ran away from her, until they were all fleeing down the street in a wild panic.

A car came to a skidding halt in the street, and Maria did a double take when she saw the flashing lights on the roof. She stopped running after the woman and her children and promptly ran straight into the arms of the shocked Gotham City police officer who got out of the passenger side door of the patrol car.

"Easy, easy, miss," he said gently. He had the loveliest blue eyes that Maria had ever seen. His name tag read: Officer Josh McKinney. He quickly pulled the ball gag out of her mouth and untied her hands. "Are you ok? What happened?"

But Maria was now so cold that she was shaking very badly; her teeth were literally chattering so much, she could not speak.

Officer McKinney swept her up in his arms and called to his partner, who stood wide-eyed by their patrol car. "Assad, open the passenger door!"

Once he did this, Officer McKinney placed the freezing Maria on the passenger seat of the patrol car. He then reached over to the dashboard and cranked up the heat. Assad returned from the trunk with a blanket, which Officer McKinney quickly wrapped around the shivering Maria.

Maria could feel her legs and feet once more, and as she warmed up under the blast of the heater, she stopped shuddering so that she was able to speak. "My n-name is Maria. I w-was a captive of J-James Varlis," she told Officer McKinney, as she stared into his dreamy blue eyes. "He kept me as a s-sex slave. I just m-made my escape now."

"James Varlis?" Assad said with alarm. "Hey, that's the same guy who the feds put that APB out on this morning, isn't it?"

"Dear God in heaven," McKinney said. The look on his face as he gazed at Maria was sadness and compassion. He gently caressed the side of her face and said, "Don't you worry, sweetheart. Your ordeal is over. You hear me? You're safe now."

Maria just nodded as she stared into Officer McKinney's…into Josh's face. She could seriously fall in love with this man. In fact, Maria pretty much figured that she had already did.

"Assad," Josh said, with a glance up at his partner. "You want to call this in?"

Assad nodded. "With pleasure. I'll also call in the SVU."

"SVU?" Maria repeated, scared. "Who are they?"

"It's ok, Maria, they're like knights in shining armor," Josh explained. "They'll take good care of you."

"Looks like she already found her knight in shining armor for today, buddy," Assad said with a grin. "You notice the way she's looking at you?"

Josh glanced back at Maria with renewed surprise. Then Maria was pleased to see that he had actually blushed; his face turned beet red with embarrassment. It only made him look more beautiful in her eyes. "Uh, um, you've been through a lot, ma'am," he said haltingly. "But don't worry, like I already told you, you're safe, now."

"I know," Maria said, as she placed her head on his shoulder and drifted off into the best sleep she'd had in weeks.

**B&B**

Olivia nodded at Maggie, and whispered, "Whenever you're ready."

Maggie Preen, the commander of the SWAT team, then nodded to her boys and girls and muttered, "Knock, knock."  
That was her code word to break into the house. The lead SWAT team members bashed in the front doors of James Varlis' townhouse with a battering ram. Once they did this, the rest of the armed SWAT members raced inside, holding their automatic weapons at the ready. Olivia, who waited outside with the rest of the SVU detectives, heard them calling out "clear" every now and then.

Maggie's voice called over the dispatch radio. "All clear, Inspector. You and your people can come in, now."

As she entered the exclusive townhouse, Olivia figured that Varlis was long gone by now, and her suspicions turned out to be true when Maggie just nodded at her. "You were right, Inspector. He's gone."

"Damn," Olivia muttered. She turned to Katie, Mike and Andrea. "Ok, guys, let's start going through the place and see what we can find. We've got Maria's testimony that Varlis did hire Bane to kill the Batman, but I want to be able to back it up with solid evidence."

"Boss," one of the SWAT team members called over the radio to Maggie. "We've found something in the basement that you really need to see."

"Be right down," she replied. Turning to Olivia, she added, "You might want to see this, as well, Inspector."  
"Knowing Varlis' sick habits, I have a feeling I might _not_ want to see it," Olivia said with dread, as she and Katie went downstairs with Maggie.

The SWAT team members were in the basement storage area, which contained a torture device that looked right out of a dungeon from the Middle Ages. It was a large, X-shaped rack, with four-point straps on the ends that were obvious in their use: to bind a victim down in spread eagle fashion.

"Oh, you sanctimonious son of a bitch," Olivia hatefully muttered. She recalled how self-righteous James Varlis had always come off being, especially back when he was a senator. And, all along, even while he persecuted others who didn't believe in his narrow-minded views, Varlis possessed sexual cravings that Olivia could only describe as purely demonic in nature.

"That sanctimonious son of a bitch is in the wind, now," Katie said bitterly.

Since J'onn had left earth to help the JLA track down Superman's killer, Olivia had filled in as Katie's temporary partner. "Not for long," Olivia told her. "We're now openly hunting him here in Gotham City, and the FBI's been breathing down his neck. They just froze all of his assets. It's just a matter of time now before we get this slug."

When her cell phone rang, Olivia excused herself to answer it. She was stunned to read, in a text message from Commissioner Gordon, that the Joker was now on the loose. "Holy Christ…."

"What is it, Inspector?" Katie asked.

"More trouble," Olivia replied. "The Joker is loose again."

"What the hell?" Maggie said, annoyed. "Is it too much to ask of Arkham to keep that wack-job locked up?"

Olivia consulted the details that Gordon had given her in the text. "The OHMR took him from Arkham. Their convoy was then attacked by a meta, who knocked over the SUV the Joker was in."

"What meta?" Katie asked. "Do they know?"

"Unknown. But Gordon said they have traffic light camera footage of the guy side-swiping the car all by himself, so he must be pretty powerful."

"Super powered, with an attitude problem, sounds like the Gotham Slasher," Katie muttered.

And then both Katie and Olivia stared at each other in shock.

"Inspector, you don't think it could be the same guy," Katie asked, "do you?"

Olivia pulled out her tablet computer and said, "Let's find out."

**B&B**

"Thanks for having us over, Jim, Stephanie," Alex said, as she and Jordan both took seats at the kitchen table.

Stephanie Powell, a pretty blonde, smiled as she poured them each a cup of tea. "Having you over is never an imposition, Alex," she said. "We owe you so much."

"That's right," Jim agreed. He was a burly, bald-headed man with a kind-hearted nature. "If it weren't for your meta network giving us sanctuary here in Gotham City, I don't know where we'd be right now."

"We'd probably be in jail. Right along with the kids," Stephanie said, with a shudder. She frowned when she noticed there was no more sugar cubes in the bowl. "Darn it. Just a sec…."

"Oh, that's ok," Jordan started to say….

Stephanie ran to the cupboard, got extra sugar cubes, then placed them within the bowl, all within a flash.

"…you don't have to go through the trouble," Jordan finished, just as she noticed the sugar bowl was now full. "Oh, uh, wow."

"Anything you guys need," Stephanie said, not looking so much as out of breath, despite having just ran five feet and back within a blink of an eye.

"She's right," Jim added. "Whatever you need, just ask. We'd be more than happy to help you in any way."

Alex now felt really awful for the question she was about to ask, which basically was: where was Jim on the night that they tangled with the Gotham Slasher? Jim Powell had super strength, just like the Slasher, but Jim was such a sweetheart that Alex couldn't believe he was the Slasher, let alone ask him any hard questions. Even her gut instinct told her that she was off base in suspecting Jim.

Her cell phone rang, and she excused herself from the table to answer it. Olivia was on the line, and she said, "The Joker has escaped once again, and it looks like the Gotham Slasher helped him."

"WHAT?!" Alex cried in disbelief. Her shout had instantly brought the polite conversation at the table to a screeching halt.

"Turn on your tablet," Olivia told her. "I sent you video of the Gotham Slasher helping the Joker in an email."  
Alex sat back down at the table and took out her tablet computer. Turning it on, she quickly found the email and opened the attached video file. She held up the tablet for all to see as they watched a trench coat-clad man in a fedora hat abruptly run towards an oncoming SUV. But instead of being run over by the large vehicle, the man tackled it like a football player, knocking the black SUV off of the street and sending it tumbling over onto the sidewalk.

Alex easily recognized the man who had knocked over the SUV. "That's him! That's the Gotham Slasher!"

"The Slasher's a meta?" Jim said, surprised.

Alex nodded. "We discovered that fact the other night during an undercover sting operation," Alex told him. She was now relieved that Jim Powell obviously wasn't the Slasher. The Slasher's physique was way smaller than that of Jim's. Besides, Alex knew that Jim had been busy attending church with his family earlier today.

"Why's the Slasher helping the Joker?" Jordan asked. "Was he working for him all along?"

"Good questions, which we'll need to look into right away," Alex said, as she got up. "Sorry to just take off on you like this, but this piece of news changes things."

"That's all right," Stephanie said. "Now that I know the Joker is on the loose, I want to go out right now, get the kids and bring them straight home."

"Oh, honey, they should be ok," Jim assured her.

"Getting them won't take a minute," Stephanie insisted.

"Using your powers openly on the streets might be a bad idea," Alex told her. "The OHMR has used the battle at the Showcase Mall to invade Gotham City in force. If they catch you, then you _will_ wind up in jail."

"She has a point. Look, you want them to come home?" Jim asked. "Then call them and let them know we're both picking them up."

"All right," Stephanie relented. "I'll call them now. It's great seeing you again, Alex, Jordan."

After Stephanie went into the living room to call her kids, Jim got up to see Alex and Jordan to the door. "You guys are hunting this dude on your own?"

"Well, we're trying to track him down," Jordan said. "But, as far as taking him down…."

"We're thinking of leaving that to the Batman," Alex said.

Jim nodded. "If you need any super-powered backup, ladies, just say the word, and I'll be happy to pitch in. Any time, anywhere."

Alex was about to say no thanks, but then realized that Jim actually had some crime fighting experience in his old hometown. "Thanks, Jim. I may just take you up on that offer."

**B&B**

"Victor and Evelyn Saperstein were both pronounced dead at the jewelry store that they owned and operated for the last thirty years," the radio news announcer stated. "Surveillance footage from their store show them both being ruthlessly murdered by the super villain known as Bane, who then proceeded to rob the store of several hundred thousand dollars worth of jewelry."

Deanna listened in horrified silence at the terrible act that the man whom she loved with all of her heart had done. Then she stared in horror at the necklace that Bane had given her when he'd returned earlier today. This was the very same necklace that he had stolen over the bodies of an elderly couple in a jewelry store after he killed them. She was repulsed by it.

'What's happened to him?' she fearfully wondered. 'Is it the Venom? Is taking excess amounts, like he is now, changing his very nature? Are these super-charged doses of Venom turning Bane into a super-charged monster?'

Deanna got up from her worktable and left the lab with the intent of finding Bane and confronting him over this state of affairs. Killing the Batman was one thing, but the vicious slaughter of innocents was too high a price to pay for their freedom.

She stopped short when she saw a surprising sight on the sofa of her living room. James Varlis sat in a weary, collapsed position on the cushions, his head lying back against the pillows and his hands covering his face.

Deanna was about to ask him what he was doing here, then thought the better of it.

She walked further onwards to one of the extra bedrooms, which Bane had taken over as his base of operations. Bane sat intently listening to a police dispatch radio along with Braddock, Kruse, Mo and Jugsy.

"What's James Varlis doing here?" she asked Bane.

"He's having a very bad day, my dear," Bane replied, as he continued to listen to the radio. Police dispatch operators chatted back and forth to each other, and to police officers in between bursts of static. Then a woman's voice spoke up.

Just as Deanna was about to ask him to explain, Jugsy suddenly pointed at the radio and said, "You hear that? She's at Mercy General Hospital right now!"

Bane nodded, as he and the others got up from the table. "Then that's where we should be right now. Let's get moving, gentlemen!"

"You're going out again?!" Deanna called after them.

"A crime lord's day is a busy one, my dear," Bane called over his shoulder as he and his men left the condo. "See you when I see you."

"A crime lord?!" Deanna said in confusion. "You?! Since when?!"

"A lot has changed, Deanna," a man's voice said sadly.

She glanced down to see Varlis peering up at her through his fingers. "What happened to you?" Deanna angrily asked. "Did Maria finally escape?"

"The police and FBI are after me," Varlis said, as he sat up on the sofa. "They froze my accounts, which normally shouldn't be a problem for me, because I have the townhouse here in Gotham, a place which nobody knows about. But, funny you should ask about Maria, because she _did_ escape from me today. And when she did, I lost my last sanctuary, along with what little emergency cash I had left."

Deanna, stunned at this news, took a step backwards. "Then it's over, isn't it? I mean, you no longer have the means to pay Bane for killing the Batman, therefore, he's no longer working for you."

"Yes, you're right," Varlis admitted. He looked like a broken man. "I am now seeking refuge here with you and Bane from the authorities. But your beloved has decided to go into business for himself. He wants to be the next crime lord of Gotham City, and there's really nothing that anybody can do to stop him."

"Why's he going to Mercy General?" Deanna asked.

"To take care of business," Varlis replied. "At least, that was what he deigned to tell me. I should consider myself lucky that he still tells me anything, now."

"A crime lord?" Deanna said with disbelief. She was wrong; the extra dosage of Venom didn't turn Bane into a monster.

It made him flat-out insane.

**B&B**

'Stranger and stranger,' Olivia thought, as she walked down the hallway of Mercy General hospital towards Maria's room. It has now been confirmed by the GCPD's Forensic Electronic Team that it was, indeed, the Gotham Slasher who had launched the assault that freed the Joker.

'If the Slasher was truly working for the Joker, then why didn't he stick around to further help his good buddy, the Clown Prince Of Crime?' Olivia wondered. There was something about that whole scene that just didn't feel right to her.

Instead of staying on the main drag within Gotham City, the OHMR convoy went two blocks out of their way through a residential neighborhood, where the Gotham Slasher just happened to run into the very same SUV that carried the Joker. It smelled of a set up to Olivia, but if that were the case, then it seemed that the OHMR were also in on it, because they commanded the convoy to take that crazy route in the first place.

'Now we've got this new OHMR bitch, this Deidre Clevenger, ranting and raving about how incompetent the GCPD is, and how she's going to have to call in even more OHMR troops just to get a handle on Gotham City,' Olivia thought with disgust. 'Clevenger is turning out to be just as shrewd as her boss, Waller, in how quickly she's taken advantage of the Joker's escape to suit her own needs.'

But as she nodded at the cops who guarded the door to Maria's room, a dark thought occurred to Olivia: What if the OHMR had orchestrated the Joker's escape? They were hell-bent on taking the Joker out of Arkham, the one place on earth where he was kept under total control. And now they can make political hay out of the fact that they lost several of their men to the Joker, thus giving them the excuse to muscle in even further on Gotham City's business. It sounded like the type of ready-made scandal that Waller would take advantage of.

'But would they be so cold to sacrifice their own men like this?' Olivia wondered, as she entered Maria's hospital room. 'Hope to Christ that I'm wrong, because I'd hate to go up against somebody who's so vicious that even her own men are expendable in her pursuit of power.'

Maria smiled at Olivia, who sat up in bed with Officer Josh McKinney seated at bedside. They had been holding hands until she entered. Olivia loved how Maria had formed a bond with McKinney. It was good to see Maria had realized that not all men were monsters like James Varlis.

"Bad news," Olivia said with a frown. "Varlis is on the run."

"He wasn't at the townhouse?" Maria asked.

Olivia shook her head. "But then, we really didn't expect him to be. Rest assured, Maria, that although Varlis on the loose, we'll find him. He's no longer got access to his money, and all of his hiding places have been discovered. It's just a matter of time, now, before…."

The window exploded inwards just then, the force of the blast knocking Olivia down to the floor. She looked up in a daze and heard Maria scream as McKinney tried to shoot a large man, dressed in black, with a fearsome looking mask.

It was Bane.

But Bane swatted McKinney against the wall, where the young cop fell prone to the floor. Olivia tried feebly to get up as the guards at the door came in and opened fire at Bane. Yet the monstrous man sent them both flying out of the room with a punch to each of their jaw.

Bane hauled Olivia up by her collar and swatted away her gun, which she had tried to remove from its holster. Bane made a fist, as if to hit her, until Olivia said, "Wait, listen to me. Even if you kill Maria, your boss is still going down. You hear me? We don't need Maria to testify; because we got all the evidence we needed to link him to you at his townhouse. Varlis is already history."

"I didn't come here for Maria," Bane told her. "I came here for you, Batman's Buddy."

He then hit her in the face, and Olivia only knew an all-consuming blackness from that moment on.

**To Be Continued...**


	10. Chapter 10

_I would like to thank everybody who sent me their good wishes. During these rough times, I really appreciate it. I won't be posting a chapter a week like I used to, but I will get this story finished. Just bear with me. Thanks. _

_I would also like to dedicate this story to my father. Onward and upward, Dad, as always. _

**Batman & Benson 8**

**Chapter Ten**

"I want to go!" Barbara said, angrily. "You can't let me _not_ go!"

"You do whatever I tell you to do," Bruce firmly told her. He stood in the center of the Batcave, completely clad in the Batsuit, save for the cowl. He pulled on his gauntlets. "That was the arrangement, remember?"

"But this is Liv!" Barbara pleaded. "I want to help!"

"I know you do," Bruce said, his tone softening. "But this is also a school night. Your father is coming over to pick you up later."

"To hell with school!" Barbara cried. "Liv needs my help!"

"That's exactly the kind of attitude that will get you killed in this job," Bruce warned her. "I've told you and Dick time and time again, that you can't let your emotions get the better of you."

"It appears that Miss Gordon shall be staying with us another night," Alfred called, as he strode towards them from the elevator. "Your father just rang, Miss Barbara, and due to the crisis with Liv, he'll be too busy to pick you up, and so he's decided to let you stay here a while longer."

"What about school tomorrow?" Barbara asked.

Alfred shook his head. "No school for you, my dear, not for the next few days. You will be staying with us for at least that long, depending on the length of this crisis."

Upon hearing this, Barbara then turned to Bruce with a hopeful look. Yet her hopes were shattered when he shook his head. "You're still not coming out with me. However, you can man the Batcomputer as Oracle. I'll need backup from you there."

"Better than nothing," Barbara said in a dreary tone.

Alfred gently rubbed the side of her arm. "Miss Rachel will be leaving for the city very soon, and I was wondering if you would be so kind to watch Master Jonah for a bit? I shall be up to relieve you very shortly."

Barbara sadly nodded her head as she walked over to the elevator. Alfred waited until she was out of earshot before he spoke. "What you said to Miss Gordon was absolutely right, sir. However, I can't help but wonder if you're ignoring your own advice."

Batman had just put his cowl on, and he glared at the old man for a moment. "What are you saying, Alfred?"

"Bane abducted Olivia to get to you, sir," the butler replied. "And, I dare say, you are letting him do so. Here you are, charging off to points unknown."

"Point taken, Alfred. But I'm not exactly charging off to nowhere," Batman said. "I'm heading to a high vantage point above the city. Bane will make a public statement to me soon, and when he does, I want to be able to strike at him as quickly as possible."

They both turned and faced the Batcomputer when it chimed an alert. The word BANE flashed on and off in red on the main screen. Underneath the name were the words "online video message intercepted".

"Speak of the devil," Alfred muttered.

"Play message," Batman ordered the Batcomputer.

Alfred then let out a gasp of horror at the image that was presented on the large screen.

It was Olivia.

She stood tightly tied to a support column, her hands bound behind her back. Ropes were pulled taunt over her chest and bare arms, and a gag was stuffed in her mouth. Olivia had been stripped of most of her clothing, and was now clad in just panties and a camisole top. When a shadow fell upon her, Olivia's eyes glanced defiantly over at whoever approached.

It was Bane.

The large, brutish man, his face still covered by the mask, grabbed Olivia by the chin and roughly held her head up, as if inspecting her face.

"Such arrogance, even in the face of death," Bane said. His voice sounded calm, and casual. "This must come from her being in your presence, Batman. This exact arrogance must be broken by me, if I am to inherit the mantle of crime lord of Gotham City. I understand this city now, Batman, just as you do. It thrives on fear. And in order for me to command Gotham City, I must command the fear. I must _become_ fear itself."

Bane released the bound Olivia's face. "I will not kill her. You know full well why she is here, Batman. You know the game as well as I do. She is bait for you. You are the one whom I must kill if I am to claim Gotham City as my own. For you are truly the city's rightful ruler, at least until you are dead. Come for her, Dark Knight, and try and rescue her, if you can. We're waiting for you in the lair of an old enemy of yours that's been recently renovated…with a brand new window, courtesy of a bat."

The image clicked off just then.

"Dear God," Alfred said with a shudder. He glanced uneasily at Batman and asked, "What did he mean at the end? About renovations by a bat?"

"He's telling me where they are," Batman said. "And I know just the place. Alfred, get upstairs and relieve Barbara from watching Jonah. I want her on the Batcomputer, now."

"Right away, sir." Alfred hesitated when he saw Batman was headed towards the Tumbler. "Are you _sure _you know where they are, sir?"

"Positive, Alfred," Batman called over his shoulder. "The place that's been renovated with a new window? I know it very well."

Batman paused momentarily as he got into the Tumbler's cockpit and stared back at Alfred. "I'm the one who created that new window."

"Godspeed, sir," Alfred murmured, as he watched the Tumbler roar to life and then take off from the Batcave. "Godspeed to you and Liv both…."

**B&B**

Alex knew there was something dreadfully wrong once she emerged from the women's room of the diner that they had stopped in for a quick bite to eat.

Jordan stood by the booth that she and Alex had been eating in, speaking in a hushed tone with Detective Kate Farlane and two GCPD uniformed officers. When Jordan gestured at the approaching Alex, they all glanced over at her with wide, wary eyes.

"What happened?" Alex asked, bracing herself to hear about another kidnapping, or, worse, another sexually-oriented murder that the SVU had caught.

But then Alex noted that the entire restaurant was very hushed, with all of the patrons staring intently at the various TV screens, which were all set to the same thing.

"Alex," Jordan nervously began. "Alex, please, wait…no, don't look…."

But Alex already stared in horror at the sight on the nearest TV screen, which showed Olivia…her beautiful, darling Olivia, tied and gagged to a column of some kind, while that animal Bane roughly grabbed her gorgeous face and made threats against the Batman. Alex wasn't really listening to anything that monster said. Instead she intently watched Olivia, the love of her life, and hoped that this was some kind of a sick joke.

The next thing she knew, Alex was being led out of the diner in a daze by Jordan and Kate. The uniforms cleared the way outside for them, then opened the rear door of an unmarked police sedan.

Once Alex sat down in the back seat, with Jordan and Kate on either side of her, the realization of what she had just seen sunk in. And she began to shake with a mixture of fear and anger. "I-Is she still alive?" Alex asked. "Did that animal kill Liv?!"

"Inspector Benson's still alive," Kate told her. "She was abducted from the hospital by Bane. But he's keeping her alive so that the Batman will come for her. Bane wants Batman, Ms. Cabot."

"And he's going to get him," Alex said, now seething with rage. "Oh, he's going to get Batman, all right. And I sincerely hope that when Batman finds him, HE RIPS OFF BANE'S DAMNED HEAD!"

Alex then began to bawl uncontrollably just then, clinging tightly to Jordan, who just rocked her back and forth gently as she tried to soothe the inconsolable Alex as best she could.

**B&B**

"This is it," Kruse called. "Let's lock and load!"

Olivia watched as Bane's men departed for separate destinations within the old abandoned factory in the Iron View section. They were armed with what looked like rocket propelled grenades, or RPGs.

"You each will be guarding the only routes inbound that the Batman can take," Bane called to them. "So remain at your posts, and keep watch for the Tumbler. Only leave your post when backup is called for over the comms."

"Hey, what if we wind up killing the Batman by blowing him up in his batcar?" a black man in the group called back to Bane. "Would you mind that very much?"

"If you see the Tumbler, hit it," Bane ordered him. Then he shook his head. "But the Batman will use the same two-pronged attack that he used on us in the mall. And I won't allow his vehicle to be used to divert our attention again."

"That's assuming he even uses the car again," Kruse said. "He's also got his own plane, you know."

"The RPGs will work just as effectively against a Batplane," Bane told him. "Just keep close watch on the perimeter; I want no more surprises."

Bane strode over to the office where Olivia was bound and intensely regarded her with his dark eyes. "Fear not, Inspector; you _will _survive this night. For who better to tell the world of Batman's demise than Batman's Buddy herself?"

He leaned in so that they were face to face. Despite the fact that Olivia was helplessly bound hand and foot and gagged, she glared right back at him unflinchingly. "You don't know how fortunate you are, Inspector Benson. You are about to witness true history being made right here. The demise of the Batman, and the rise of Bane as the one true power of Gotham City." Bane turned to one of his men and said, "Keep watch on our guest. She has a front row seat to these proceedings, and I want her to enjoy the show."

'You crazy bastard!' Olivia thought, as Bane stalked away from her. She would have told him so, had her mouth not been stuffed with a gag. Then Olivia glanced the man whom Bane had left behind to guard her.

"Hey baby," the man said, as he slowly walked up to her. He was slight in build, with a Spanish accent, and he had the look of just having recently been in jail. It was the hungry look of a man who had been denied too many of life's simple pleasures. "Not so tough now, are ya? Not without your badge and gun, huh, chica?"

He ran his hand up Olivia's bare leg and hooked a finger on the side strap of her panties. "Hell, you ain't got much of anything on right now, do ya?"

His hand then slid up under her camisole, up towards her breasts.

'Oh, shit….' Olivia warily thought.

**B&B**

"WE GOT A HIT!"

Deidre glanced up from the ebook she had been reading on her iPad. She was in the main control center at McHenry Air Force base, maintaining what they called Bat-watch. When Bane uploaded the video with the kidnapped Olivia Benson online twenty minutes ago, Deidre had ordered her entire squad on full alert.

They had launched several stealth drones over Gotham City in the hopes of capturing the Dark Knight as he entered the city, and it appears that was exactly what happened.

She went and leaned over at the console of the operator who had called out. "What have you got?" Deidre asked.

"Looks like a big-assed vehicle entering the city, right here," the operator said, as he pointed on the screen.

Deidre smiled when she recognized the bulky black shape of the Tumbler. She pulled out her cell phone and called David Marks, the assault squad commander.

His face appeared on the screen of her phone. "We got something?"

"We got the Batman, driving right up the main drag of the city," Deidre replied with a grin. "Go kick his ass!"

"With extreme prejudice, ma'am." Marks then turned towards his assault crew, who stood ready by the special jump-jet that had been requisitioned for them. "ALL RIGHT, LET'S SADDLE UP, PEOPLE! WE'RE GOING BAT HUNTING!"

**B&B**

"Where are you going?"

Batman was momentarily diverted from the intense drive into the city by Oracle's voice, which spoke to him over the Tumbler's cockpit speakers.

"The Iron View section, to a former battleground," Batman replied. "The Penguin's lair, where he held Alex captive. She was actually rescued by Mr. Freeze, who momentarily confused Alex for Nora, his wife."

"Yes, I remember," Oracle said excitedly. "We all flew over there in the Batwing. You flew right through the wall!"

"Thus creating the 'brand new window' that Bane spoke of in the video," Batman said. "He was telling me exactly where they were."

"And leading you into a trap, no doubt."

"He's the one falling into a trap, Oracle, by crossing me for the last damn time," Batman snarled. "Can you check traffic for me?"

"You're clear all the way up on West Avenue," she reported. "Just take that straight into the Iron View section."

"Thanks, I'll-"

Batman was startled when the very asphalt in front of him blew up into a fiery explosion. He deftly steered the Tumbler around the smoking crater, only to see another explosion blow up further down the street.

Batman brought the Tumbler to a halt, then glanced around. There was nothing on the street that was armed with that kind of firepower. Then he glanced up.

And he saw it.

Some sort of flying monstrosity with hover abilities hung over him, aiming red targeting lasers at the Tumbler's armor. Batman stomped on the pedal, and the Tumbler lurched forward, just as the very ground where it stood exploded into flames.

"Who the hell's shooting at you?!" Oracle asked.

"Good question," Batman said through clenched teeth as he swerved the Tumbler in a zig-zag pattern down the street. He expectedly ducked the rapid fire from the hovering aircraft.

"Is it Bane?" Oracle nervously said.

Batman stepped on the brakes when a half dozen armored-suited soldiers landed in the street right in front of him. Their armored suits looked like cheap-looking, bulky knock-offs of Tony Stark's sleek Iron Man design.

The lead soldier, who actually had a red, white and blue banner painted across his chest, held up his hand at the Tumbler and said, "Batman, you are under arrest by orders of the OHMR! You will surrender yourself now, or…."

"DAMN IT, I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS!" Batman roared.

He stepped on the pedal, and the Tumbler screamed towards the line of armored troops before him.

They opened fire with meager-looking energy bolts that shot from their hands. But they were no match for the Tumbler's armor. Batman aimed the hulking monster right at them until the OHMR troopers all ducked out of the way at the last minute.

The Tumbler shook and rattled with a direct hit from the support aircraft struck it on the roof. Batman glared up at it through a side window and said, "It's time to get rid of _you_…."

**B&B**

As he worked in his office, Commissioner James Gordon thought he was hearing things. He could have sworn he heard a loud booming, off in the distance. Then there was a rapid knocking at his office door, and Montoya entered in a panic. "Commissioner, there's a full-scale war going on down the street!"

"WHAT?!" Gordon got up from his desk and went to the window.

"You can see better up on the roof, sir," Montoya told him.

After a quick elevator ride to the roof, Gordon found himself staring at a flying contraption that hovered over the streets like a large angry hornet. It fired what looked like missiles into the streets. Harvey Bullock stood watching the ruckus along with a crowd of other cops.

"Make room around the Bat-signal," Gordon ordered. "I've got to let Batman know about this!"

"No need Commish," Harvey said. "Bats is who they're fighting."

"Oh, my God," Gordon muttered, when he saw the familiar outline of the Tumbler on the street. It swerved and turned sharply, deftly avoiding the onslaught of missiles that were fired at it.

"But who's Batman fighting?" Montoya asked.

"That's what I'm going to find out," Jim Gordon swore, as he watched his city being turned into a war zone. "And when I do find them, I'll make these sons of bitches sorry they ever stepped foot in this town!"

**B&B**

Batman pulled the Tumbler into the parking garage and raced upstairs to the top floor. The Tumbler, being low and squat, handled the tight turns magnificently. Once he emerged on the roof of the parking garage, Batman finally had a clear field of view, free of buildings. He saw that the aircraft had spotted him, and moved in for the kill, hovering directly over the roof of the parking lot.

Which was just what Batman wanted.

He flicked a button on the control console, one that ignited a recently added feature that was attached to the front of the Tumbler. It was an addition that Lucius made back when Batman battled Clayface. It should work well here. Batman could have targeted his enemy with the Tumbler's missiles, but he didn't want to kill the people on board the aircraft, no matter how hard they tried to kill him.

The aircraft swung towards him, releasing another flurry of missiles that slammed into the Tumbler's side, which violently rocked the vehicle and sent a piercing stab of pain into Batman's torso. Stopping the Tumbler, the Dark Knight grunted in agony as he glared down at the jagged shaft of metal that had jutted out of his side.

'They've switched to high caliber, armor-piercing ammo,' Batman realized, as he pulled the bloody piece of metal from his flesh. 'Better end this, now.'

"YOU'D BETTER SURRENDER, BATMAN!" someone aboard the aircraft commanded over a loudspeaker. "OR ELSE WE WILL BLOW YOU AWAY!"

Batman waited until the aircraft had swung into view right in front of the Tumbler. He shook his head at the fact that they had just exposed themselves to his forward weapons array. He wasn't sure if it was a move born out of arrogance, or sheer stupidity.

"THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING, BATMAN! SURRENDER, OR FACE THE DIRE CONSEQUENCES!"

"You first," Batman growled, as he pulled the trigger.

Clayface was a powerful and extremely dangerous shape shifter whose main weakness was electricity. Batman now used the weapon intended for him on this new enemy. He watched as several million volts of electricity shot out from the front of the Tumbler and directly into the aircraft.

The stricken aircraft reared back, as if in shock, as all of its systems abruptly shut down. And once its main hover drives died, there was only one way it could go.

Straight down.

Batman watched grimly as the aircraft slammed into the roof of the parking garage. The crash instantly totaled the aircraft, destroying both of its main hover engines and shattering the glass in the cockpit. Batman drove the Tumbler back down to the street and headed for his showdown with Bane.

"Oracle, I've dealt with the minor problem, and am now heading towards the main objective," Batman said. "What do the streets look like?"

Yet there was only static.

"Oracle?" Batman called again, as he adjusted the tuner on the communications console. Yet there was still nothing. The battering the Tumbler took from the assault team must have fried the comms. He drove on, ignoring the fact that he was out of contact with the Batcave.

Just like he tried to ignore the throbbing pain in his side.

But there was no time for pain.

He was out to rescue Olivia and deliver justice to Bane.

Even if it killed him.

**B&B**

"What the hell?" Rachel said, as she gazed at the smoldering buildings in the downtown area. She stood on the roof of police headquarters with Jim Gordon beside her. "This almost looks like Metropolis just after Doomsday killed Superman!"

Gordon looked just as livid as Rachel felt. "It was an assault force from the OHMR," he told her. "They crashed on the roof of a parking garage on Canal Street. They were fighting the Batman…and lost. We've captured the crew of the aircraft, but the armored soldiers took off on us. They ignored commands from my cops to halt."

Hearing this news only made Rachel more angry. "A fed strike force is working within Gotham City's limits, without even telling us?!"

Gordon shook his head. "They don't have to, Rachel. Under the new anti-terrorist guidelines, they can now move in anywhere they want without so much as a hello to the local authorities."

Rachael gestured at the ruined office buildings and overturned cars that were set ablaze by the battle. "We have our own anti-terrorism guidelines, as well. And this looks a lot like terrorism to me, Jim."

Gordon gave her a wide-eyed look behind his glasses. "Rachel, please don't be thinking what I think you're thinking…."

"These OHMR bastards came in and shot up our city," Rachel told him. "You bet I'm going after them!"

"Amanda Waller is in Metropolis, which is out of your jurisdiction," Gordon reminded her.

"Yeah, but that's not where _this_ bunch came from," Harvey Bullock spoke up from behind them. "This assault team actually launched from McHenry Air Force base."

"McHenry? _That's_ within my jurisdiction," Rachel said, satisfied. "Get a SWAT team ready to go, Jim. I'm getting a warrant from the first judge I find who'll give it to me." She turned to Harvey and added, "Thanks."

"Hey, it's my city, too, counselor," he said with a shrug.

**B&B**

"You're such a sweet looking mama," the man whispered, as he ran his hand across Olivia's chest.

'Just wait one second, you bastard,' an enraged Olivia thought. She was frantically working her wrists loose from their bonds behind the pole that she was bound to, and the ropes grew more loose by the second. 'I'll show you just how sweet I am!'

"Oh, yeah, you and me, we're gonna have a real nice time together," he told her. He dropped his hand from her breasts and reached down to her panties, which he began to remove. "But first, let's just get nice and comfortable first, huh?"  
A shadow fell across the man's face, and when he glanced up, his eyes grew wide with fear. Olivia smiled under her gag; she didn't have to look to know that the Batman was behind her.

Olivia's molester moved to pull a gun from his belt, only to be struck down by a bullet shot from a gun with a silencer. This stunned Olivia, for the Batman would never use a gun.

But once she finally saw who it was who had just saved her, the bound and gagged Olivia just stared at him in horror with wide eyes.

**B&B**

"Colonel Lawrence Greenway?" Rachel asked the officer who strode towards them.

"Yes, ma'am," he replied. He cast an uneasy eye at the small army of police cars, SWAT vans and armored trucks that were parked at the front gate of McHenry Air Force base. "I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage."

"You don't watch much local news, do you Colonel?" Jim Gordon asked. He stood next to Rachel at the front gate of the air force base. "This is Rachel Dawes, the District Attorney of Gotham City."

"My duties require me to keep watch on the skies, sir," Greenway tersely said. He swept a hand over the multitude of flashing emergency lights before him. "May I ask what is this about?"

"I think you know full well what this is about, Colonel," Rachel said. "It's regarding the assault force that just attacked Gotham City. It was launched from this base, and we're here to arrest the people involved."

Greenway just stared at her for a moment, as if she were crazy. "You can't be serious!"

"Terrorists have just launched an attack on Gotham City, Colonel. We've traced the attack to your air force base," Rachel said. "So, yes, we're very serious."

"Colonel, sir!" an airman called from the guardhouse.

"Not now," Greenway called to him. He turned to Rachel. "Are you insane? We never launched any such attack."

"Gotham City International Airport would disagree with you, Colonel," Rachel said. "Their radar picked up an unidentified aircraft over Gotham City. It would not respond to any hails, and, after it attacked the city with missiles, it later crashed on the roof of a parking garage. The flight pattern of that craft leads directly back to here, to your base, Colonel Greenway."

"What's the matter, Colonel," Jim sarcastically added, "the OHMR couldn't afford stealth tech?"

"Colonel, sir, please!" the airman pleaded from the guardhouse.

"NOT NOW, DAMN IT!" a visibly nervous Greenway shouted at him. "Look, I don't know what you want, but…."

"I've already stated what I want," Rachel said, "I want to go onto your base and arrest the OHMR people responsible for the terrorist attack on my city."

"No way are you getting in here," Greenway firmly replied.

"That's strange, because General Owens, from NORAD, was much more helpful," Rachel said. "I called him before coming here, and he was _extremely_ interested in this situation."

Before Greenway could respond to that, the airman from the guardhouse came over with several of his comrades and stood between the colonel and Rachel.

"What's the meaning of this?" Greenway demanded.

"Excuse me, sir," the lead airman said. His tone was very calm and formal. "But we have direct orders from General Owens to escort you over to the phone so you can speak to him right now."

Greenway looked visibly sick. "General Owens is on the phone right now?"

"Yes, sir. Please come with us, _now_, sir."

"Uh…excuse me…." Greenway muttered, as he proceeded to go over to the guardhouse and speak to his commanding officer. He had the doomed air of a misbehaving student who had been caught and was now on his way to the principal's office.

"Smart move, calling ahead like that, Rachel," Jim commented. "Looks like we're going to get these OHMR creeps, now."

"Not unless they leave beforehand," Rachel worriedly said.

Jim gave a questioning glance at Montoya, who consulted her radio and then shook her head. "No activity on all gates at McHenry, sir," she reported.

"You see, Rachel? We've got the whole base cordoned off," Jim assured her. "Nobody's going anywhere."

"Oh, damn!" Rachel pointed at a sleek Blackhawk helicopter that suddenly rose up from behind the gates of McHenry. "How much you want to bet the OHMR bastards are aboard that thing?"

A sheepish Greenway walked back over to them. "I have been ordered by General Owens to allow you full access to the base. You may go wherever you wish."

"Of course we can," an annoyed Rachel muttered, as she watched the Blackhawk as it soared off into the night sky. "We're free to search the base…now that the people we want are long gone!"

**B&B**

Bane sat cross-legged in the center of the large hall, and calmed himself as much as he could. The venom flowed through him like a raging river, igniting every nerve within his body. He was ready for battle; he was prepared to fight to the death, if he had to…yet he would have to wait for his adversary to come to him.

It didn't take long. Soon, the concrete walls echoed with the explosions of pellets that spewed smoke all over, fogging up the room.

Bane smile beneath his mask.

Batman was here.

He rose from his seat, taking in a deep breath and rolling his head to work out the kinks in his neck. He could not see because of the smoke. But, being a creature of the jungle, Bane had learned not to depend solely on his sight. This was one of the main mistakes he'd made when he first fought Batman in the mall.

And he would not make it again.

Bane felt the rush of air come at him from behind, and was instantly grateful for the Venom, which not only increased his strength, but heightened his senses, as well. He ducked down, just as a body flew through the air right where he stood. The infrared goggles he wore showed the Batman as he deftly rebounded from the missed attack by landing on his feet. The Dark Knight turned and began his attack anew.

Bane stood there, giving off the impression of not knowing what was going on, thanks to being blinded by the smoke. Once the Batman approached for the killing blow, Bane swerved at the last minute and landed a shattering punch to the Dark Knight's stomach.

The blow sent the Batman reeling, and although their brief encounter did not last long, Bane still picked up something. A smell.

It was the scent of blood.

"Injured, are you?" Bane taunted the Batman. "Burning the wick at both ends will do that to a man. Perhaps it is time for you to take a nice, long, _permanent _vacation."

Bane strode over to the hunched over Batman, only to let out a pained grunt when the Dark Knight abruptly kicked him in the stomach. Bane grabbed the Batman's foot and threw it up in the air, which flung the Dark Knight head over heels backwards.

Batman landed on his feet, but staggered slightly, clutching his side. Bane came over and slugged him in the face. Batman foresaw the attack and tried to duck the blow, but he was too late. The Dark Knight let out an anguished grunt as his face took the full force of Bane's venom-enhanced punch.

Bane watched, satisfied, as the Batman fell to the floor. Bane came over and kicked the Dark Knight right in the wounded area he had seen him clutch earlier. He was rewarded with an agonizing cry of pain from the Batman.

Bane reached down and grabbed the Batman, who tried to fight him off, but was no match for the venom-enhanced strength in Bane's arms.

"It's time to end this," Bane said, "right now."

Bane raised Batman so that he flailed helplessly above his head. Then, Bane pile-drove the Dark Knight right down onto his bent knee, and when he did this, Bane heard a loud crunch erupt from Batman's back.

When Bane flung the Batman onto the floor, the Dark Knight just lay there in contorted agony. Bane smiled under his mask. With Batman's back now broken, the fight was over.

"BEHOLD, THE MIGHTY BATMAN!" Bane triumphantly roared into the darkness that surrounded them. He stared down at the Batman, who, despite the pain he was in, still tried to retrieve something from his utility belt. Bane was truly impressed. Even now, with his back broken, the Dark Knight still tried to fight back.

"You are a valiant man," Bane admitted, "and, because of that. I shall honor you by giving you a swift and painless death. Goodbye, Batman. Rest in peace."

Bane wanted nothing more than to rip out his still-beating heart and show it to the Batman as he lay dying. Bane raised one fist up in the air above the helpless Batman, ready to bring it down in a smashing blow right into the Dark Knight's chest.

"Oh, yoo-hoo, Baney!" a sing-song voice called out from above him.

Bane, startled, turned in the direction that he heard the voice. And what he saw not only startled him further, it actually sent a chill down his spine.

The Joker stood on an elevated platform above him.

And the Clown Prince Of Crime had an RPG aimed right at Bane.

"Now hold still," the Joker instructed, sounding much like a photographer just before taking a photo. "These babies have a tendency to skirt to the left…."

Bane started running.

But it was too late.

The rocket propelled grenade slammed into the floor just behind Bane's back, blowing him halfway across the empty room, where he crashed painfully against the concrete wall and landed on the steel grate floor. By breaking into a run when he did, Bane saved himself from being blown apart by avoiding a direct hit. The venom that coursed through his body had also saved him from instantly dying just now from the shock of the blast's concussion.

But he was merely still alive, nothing more. Bane lay on the floor in horrendous agony, completely unable to move. A part of his mind could not help but appreciate the sick irony that he now was just as helpless as the Batman.

"Did you think you could waltz into town, with your Mexican wrestler mask, and just take over?" the Joker casually asked him. His voice echoed all over the chamber. "I mean…seriously, Bane. Did you _really_ think it would be that easy?!"

Bane was just barely able to turn his head to look up at the Joker, who had finished reloading the RPG.

The Joker had an inhuman grin on his face as he aimed the weapon right at Bane. The Clown Prince Of Crime then said, "Welcome to Gotham City, _bitch_…."

**To be continued...**


	11. Chapter 11

_I would like to thank from the bottom of my heart those of you who reached out to me during these trying times. In both the reviews and PMs, I received some wonderful messages filled with hope. It's been a rough few months since my father passed, but my faith in humanity has been uplifted from the support from the decent souls on this site. Thank you very much. _

**Batman & Benson 8**

**Chapter Eleven**

'C'mon, c'mon, damn it!' Olivia thought, as she twisted and pulled her hands free of the ropes. Her hands felt raw with pain, and when she glanced at them, she saw that her wrists were bloody.

But at least she was now finally free.

She removed her gag, then bent down and untied her ankles. She glanced at the dead man who lay on the floor, the very same man who damn near raped her while she was helplessly tied to this support column. But he was stopped cold by the Joker, of all people.

Olivia just couldn't believe it when she saw her attempted rapist get shot down by the Clown Prince Of Crime. And yet, no sooner did she feel a profound sense of relief than Olivia faced the sheer terror of coming face to face with the Joker while still helplessly bound to the column.

However, the alabaster-skinned madman just gave her one of his grisly, ear to ear grins, just before he tipped his hat at her and walked away, leaving Olivia alone.

'Don't know what he's up to,' Olivia thought, as she grabbed the gun from her dead assailant, 'but, whatever it is, I've got to stop him. At the very least, I've got to warn Bruce….'

Olivia was about to bolt outside, when she suddenly flinched at the sound of an explosion. She instinctively took cover against the wall by the doorway, the gun at the ready, and cautiously peered out.

The Joker stood on the platform directly in front of the abandoned office, holding an empty RPG. He had just fired it into the floor.

"Did you think you could waltz into town, with your Mexican wrestler mask, and just take over?" the Joker casually asked, as he reloaded the RPG. "I mean…seriously, Bane. Did you _really_ think it would be that easy?!"

The Joker aimed the RPG right at the masked criminal who lay sprawled on the floor below. "Welcome to Gotham City, _bitch_…."

At first, Olivia was about to allow Joker to rub out Bane before she took him down. But when she saw that the Batman also lay on the floor below them, she swiftly moved into action.

She stepped out onto the platform behind the Joker, aimed her gun right at his back and shouted, "JOKER, FREEZE!"

Olivia's eyes grew wide with terror when she saw him shoot the rocket propelled grenade right into the metal grate floor below them. Forgetting about the Joker, she peered over the railing to see if Bruce was all right.

He was. Olivia was relieved to see the grenade had missed him by a mile. But Bane wasn't so lucky. Olivia's sudden order for him to freeze had caused the Joker to miss, sending the rocket propelled grenade straight into the metal grate that Bane lay on. The explosion blew apart the grate, dumping Bane down to the floor below them; he was now well out of the Joker's aim.

The Joker turned and glared angrily at her. "You stupid bitch! Just for that, this'll be the last time I save your honor!"

Olivia just smiled thinly as she raised her gun at the crazy bastard. She was about to shoot him…until the both of them came under a hail of bullets.

"Shit!" Olivia muttered, as she quickly took cover behind a steel column. She glanced over at the Joker and saw that he was gone.

'Actually, that's a good idea,' Olivia thought, as she skipped away from the column and dived back into the office where she had been kept captive. Several more bullets chased her, causing the metal desk in the office to whine loudly when they struck it.

Olivia grimaced in pain as she rolled along on the hardwood floor. She was still clad only in her panties and a tank top, which exposed a lot of bare skin that got badly scraped.

'But at least I'm alive,' she grimly thought. She flinched when the front wall of the office got chewed up by the intense gunfire. 'For now!'

As she sought cover from the gunfire behind a pile of wooden crates, Olivia did a double take at a box that her bare foot had brushed up against.

It was a crate that contained an unused RPG launcher, along with a half dozen grenades.

"Oh, now we're talking," Olivia whispered, as she picked up the launcher. "Come to mama, my little darling…."

**B&B**

Kruse let out a laugh as he watched the Joker dive to the floor on the other side of the catwalk. "YEAH, THAT'S IT, YOU STINKING BASTARD, RUN LIKE THE RAT YOU REALLY ARE!"

He let out another burst of automatic weapons fire, but the bullets harmlessly bounced off of the metal railing. The Joker was nowhere to be seen.

"Cool it!" Braddock called. He shook his head. "Quit wasting your bullets, Kruse. That asshole's gone."

"So what are we waiting for?!" Kruse angrily said. "Let's get after him!"

"Yeah!" Jugsy chimed in.

"After what he's done to Ralph, it's the least we can do," Mo muttered.

Kruse felt the rage that had been simmering within boil over once more just at the mention of their deceased comrade's name. They had found him earlier, lying on the floor dead, with his throat slashed from ear to ear in a horrendous grin pattern that the Joker was infamous for. Kruse had sworn right then and there over poor Ralph's body that he would personally hunt down that damned clown and give _him_ a bloody grin under his own chin.

"Never mind the Joker for now." Braddock stood up over the metal railing and nodded at something below them with a smile. "For one thing, we've got us another target."

Kruse glanced down and grinned when he saw the Batman sprawled out on the floor below them. The Dark Knight, who appeared to be in a lot of pain, reached for something in his utility belt. He then threw a small object on the floor, which exploded in a large cloud of smoke that quickly covered him from them.

Kruse just burst into laughter at this. "Having a bad day, are we, Bats?!" he called, as he aimed his automatic weapon in the general direction where Batman had lain. "Well, brace yourself, buddy, because it's gonna get a lot worse!"

"The same can be said for you!" a woman's voice called out.

Kruse glanced over at the opposite catwalk and saw Olivia Benson standing there, holding an RPG on her bare shoulder. She had it aimed right at them.

She pulled the trigger.

"Oh, fu-" Kruse started to say, just before the catwalk they were on was cut clean in half by the explosion from the RPG.

**B&B**

Olivia grinned broadly at the sight of Bane's henchmen as they scrambled to get to safety from the shattered catwalk. She didn't bother to reload the RPG, because she just knew that she had just set them up perfectly for the Batman, who would no doubt swoop down on them at moment.

'Any moment, now,' Olivia thought, as she watched with growing consternation as Bane's lackeys all quickly escaped through a doorway. 'Wait, what the hell? Where's Batman?'

A cold stab of fear shot through Olivia when she saw, through the dissipating cloud of smoke, that the Batman still lay helplessly on the floor below her. "Oh God," she whispered in dread. "Oh, God, please, let him be all right…."

She dropped the RPG launcher and ran down the steps to the main floor. The cold concrete felt like ice under her bare feet, but Olivia didn't care. All that mattered was getting to the Batman. Her police training did force her to pause for a moment and check the high ground with her gun. But once she saw it was clear, Olivia quickly knelt down before the stricken Dark Knight.

"Get out of here," Batman said to her through gritted teeth. "Leave right now, Liv."

"What happened?" Olivia asked with concern.

"DAMN IT, OLIVIA," Batman roared at her. "I SAID _LEAVE_!"

"I'm not going anywhere," she told him. Her tone was calm but stern. "It's _me_, remember? Your really annoying, stubborn sister? Now tell me what happened."

The lower half of Batman's face that was exposed by his mask was covered with sweat, which Olivia knew was not a good sign. "Bane broke my back," he said, looking very strained.

"Can you move your legs?"

"I can't even _feel_ my legs, sis…."

'Oh, shit,' Olivia thought, feeling sick with worry and horror. Yet she kept a poker face. The last thing she wanted was to show her fear to Batman. "Give me your left hand."

He offered it to her. "Why?"

"I'm calling us a cab, what else?" she wearily replied. Then Olivia gently pulled the back of his left wrist to her face and carefully spoke two words: "Come here."

**B&B**

The Tumbler sat quietly in the shadows of the alleyway, much like a great armored beast that waited patiently for its prey. Then, inside the empty cockpit, came the sound of a familiar voice. It was a woman's voice, which the computer instantly identified as being Olivia Benson's, and it said: "Come here."

The Tumbler's massive engine roared to life just then, as its tracking and guiding systems quickly zeroed in on the location of Olivia Benson. She was inside the building that it sat across from, the very same building where its Master, the Batman, had gone into.

The Tumbler wheels spun as it careened over to the building, where it stopped in front of a large metal garage door. After hitting the door with a few sonar pings, the Tumbler's computer determined that it was thin enough for entry. There was now only one thing left to do.

Get rid of the door.

The Tumbler armed three missiles, aimed them at the precise points on the door that was needed for a clean take down, and fired. The door was obliterated. Once the route was cleared, the Tumbler roared into the building, honing in on the lone heat signatures that were given off by two warm bodies. One figure lay on the floor, while the other knelt over it. The kneeling figure turned and smiled broadly at it.

The Tumbler's facial recognition program instantly knew that well-known broad grin from anywhere: it was Olivia Benson. The Tumbler came to a halt right in front of her, its engine now purring like a large predator cat.

"Sentry status!" the figure on the floor commanded. The Tumbler easily recognized its Master's voice. "Probe area for hostiles!"

Every sensor within the Tumbler did a rapid sweep of the interior of the building. "Area scanned," the Tumbler reported in its curt, female voice. "No hostiles sighted."

Olivia Benson got up, went over to the Tumbler, and patted its armored hide. "Good girl," she cooed at the vehicle. "Open up, please."

When the Tumbler opened its cockpit to her, Olivia turned to the Master and added, "Is the stretcher still in the same place?"

"Yes…no, wait, it isn't," the Master replied. His voice sounded agitated, as if he were in great pain. "It's a new, collapsible stretcher, now, Liv…it should be over by the…."

"I got it," Olivia called, as she stood up in the cockpit. "Brace yourself. This is gonna hurt."

"Do whatever you have to," the Master said. "I'm ready."

As Olivia Benson began the painful and delicate process of placing and then strapping the Master onto the stretcher, the Tumbler did another scan of the area. It spotted movement over by the far wall, but the heat signatures were too small. They were determined to be nothing more than rodents.

Yet the Tumbler stayed vigilant. Regardless of the danger they might face, it was armed and ready. And despite whatever obstacles that arose, it would get them all home safe and sound.

**B&B**

The sewers beneath the Iron View district were really nothing more than a series of water-filled tunnels. Even in the middle of a sunny day, they were as dark as the most ancient of catacombs. And at night, nothing could be seen. There was only the steady sound of the raging water that flowed through the narrow concrete tubes.

But every now and then, a shaft of light will penetrate the blackness, such as the streetlight that shone down through the grating in the street directly above this particular sewer tunnel. The light revealed a quickly flowing rush of water that looked like a dangerous stretch of rapids.

And then a hand stabbed out from the oncoming flow of water and clawed onto the side wall. It was joined by a second hand, which found the bottom rung of a metal ladder by touch. Both hands gripped the ladder, which was bolted to the wall, and the muscular arms pulled on it with all of their might.

Bane's masked head emerged from the water, then his shoulders, and then his torso. As his hands began the arduous climb up the ladder, towards the light, his battered body finally was completely free of the raging river of water. Yet it was not over. Not by a long shot.

When Bane reached the metal grate, he tried to push it out of his way. Yet the grate was firmly wedged in place. Feeling a vicious spike of rage from within, Bane clenched one hand into a fist and smashed it against the grate.

The grate was sent soaring into the night sky, until it landed somewhere out of sight with a loud crashing sound. The night air became alive with the sound of a car alarm blaring incessantly.

Bane continued to climb up the ladder, and when he reached the surface, he crawled along the asphalt of a street. Then he collapsed into a weary heap. He lay there for a while, regaining his strength, until he was interrupted.

"Hey!" a man called. His sullen voice echoed down the street. "Hey, you!"

Bane heard footsteps walk up to him, and he glanced up to see a man standing before him in a robe and slippers. "Did you do that?" the man angrily demanded. "Did you do that to my car, you masked freak?! What are you, hopped up on drugs? Look at it! Look at my car! It's completely totaled, thanks to that heavy metal grate smashing through the hood! You want to ignore me? Fine, just stay right there, fella, because I'm calling the police right now, and…."

And the man never finished his threat. Because, right at that moment, Bane had reached over and grabbed his leg.

And then Bane squeezed with all his might.

The man let out a shrill scream as his leg, just above the ankle, was crushed into a bloody pulp.

As the now hobbled man fell to the street, Bane rose up to his full height. The Venom still flowed through his body at full strength, reinvigorating him. He suspected that, without the Venom coursing through his blood, he would have been dead by now. Killed by the Joker.

The Joker.

The damned Joker….

Feeling a flare up of rage, Bane grabbed the shrieking, babbling man by the head and effortlessly twisted it around 180 degrees, snapping his neck. The man, who was now very quiet, and very dead, stared wide-eyed over his own back.

Various gawkers that had gathered on the sidewalks, most of whom clad in their sleep clothes and robes, now all ran screaming from him as Bane left the dead body on the asphalt like the gutter trash that it was. As he calmly strode down the street, all Bane could think about was the Joker, and how he would pay.

'Oh, the Joker will pay very dearly,' Bane thought murderously. 'Very dearly indeed….'

**B&B**

Jordan let out a loud yawn, then sheepishly checked to make sure she didn't accidentally wake anybody. She was relieved to see that both Alex and Jonah were still sound asleep in each other's arms beside her on the sofa.

Jordan stood up and stretched, as the TV burbled on in the background. She had fallen asleep on the sitcom that she had been watching, and Jordan frowned when she realized the TV was now playing some nature show about penguins.

An unwanted image of the Penguin, the criminal mastermind who had vexed the Batman in the past, flashed in her mind. Jordan quickly grabbed the remote in order to change the channel, then realized it would be better to just turn the TV off altogether.

She got up and strode barefoot through the apartment suite that Alex shared with Olivia here at Wayne Manor, admiring the décor, and not helping but feeling a little jealous at these spacious digs.

Then Jordan felt extremely guilty for even feeling _any_ envy for Alex and Olivia right now. 'Poor Olivia has been missing for so long, now,' she realized, as she gazed with sympathy at the slumbering Alex and Jonah.

'And still no word from her, nor about her. All we can do now is just wait, and just hope that the Batman will….'

Jordan's thoughts were shattered when none other than Olivia herself opened the door and strode into the apartment suite. Barefoot, she was clad in an outfit that consisted of dark blue sweatpants with a matching color sweatshirt. When she saw Jordan, Olivia did a double take, then said, "Jordan, good, we need you. Bruce is badly injured."

"Olivia?!" Alex called from the sofa. She quickly and gently placed the slumbering Jonah on the cushions and ran into her lover's embrace. "Oh, my God, he did it. Batman did it. He saved you! I am so glad to see you!"

Olivia broke the embrace long enough to give Alex loving a kiss on the lips.

Jordan was appalled to see the bloody ligature marks on Olivia's wrists. "You should put bandages on that," she said, changing into doctor mode. "I'm surprised you didn't get it done by now."

"There's no time," Olivia told her. "Bruce needs you more than I do right now."

Jordan frowned at her. When did Bruce get injured? "What happened?"

Olivia grabbed Jordan's arm and tried to rush her out of the suite. "No time to explain. It's better that you just see for yourself."

"Liv, whoa, wait!" Jordan said. "Could I at least put my shoes back on?"

"Where we're going, Jordan, there's no dress code."

"Where _are_ we going?" Jordan asked.

Olivia was about to speak, until a man's voice called, "Are you _sure_, Liv?"

Jordan turned and saw Alfred standing in the doorway. The butler entered the apartment suite with a grave look on his face. "Are you absolutely _sure_ you trust her?"

"Yes," Olivia said emphatically. "Alex trusts her to perform medical care on people in the Meta Underground Railroad. And that's good enough for me. You've done all you've can for him, Alfred. You've admitted that yourself. We need a doctor. Right now." Olivia gestured at Jordan. "And here she is."

"Oh my God, Olivia," Alex said, her eyes wide behind her glasses. "What the hell happened?"

"Bruce is hurt, babe, very badly," Olivia said. She appeared to be near tears. "He can't walk."

Jordan had heard enough. "Ok, look, no matter what happened, I won't breathe a word of it to anybody," she said to Alfred. Turning to Olivia, she added, "You said it would be better to show me? So go ahead and show me, right now."

"I'll stay with Master Jonah," Alfred offered. "You go with them, Alex, Master Bruce will be pleased to see you, as well."

"Is he awake?" Alex asked.

"I've stabilized him," the butler assured her. He glanced at Jordan. "He's refused any pain killers. He wants to wait until a doctor sees him."

"Then let's go." Olivia grabbed Jordan's arm and hauled her out of the suite.

Alex followed behind. "Should we at least warn her, first?"

"About what?" Jordan anxiously asked. She began to wonder what had happened to Bruce Wayne that could be causing such a ruckus like this. If he was merely injured, why not just take him to the hospital? Unless it was a situation where a dead hooker was involved?

Olivia continued to roughly escort her downstairs to the library, where Jordan was shocked to see a wall had been left ajar. As she was rushed down a hidden short corridor, Jordan began to put it all together. Bruce Wayne had some sort of a hidden play room where he got injured while having sex…but why would he be having his kinky fun now, of all times, while Olivia had been abducted by Bane?

These thoughts ran through her head as Jordan rode down in an elevator with Olivia and Alex. When the doors opened, Jordan strode out with them, then stopped once she realized that she walked barefoot over a metal grate floor.

Then she glanced up and saw the giant penny that leaned against one wall. Beside it was an impressive, life-size model of a T-Rex.

'That's what this is, some kind of a fantasy man cave for an extremely wealthy man,' Jordan thought, as she resumed walking. The cold floor made her wish that Olivia had let her put her shoes on. 'Maybe Bruce just stubbed his toe on something down here, and….'

Jordan stopped once more when she saw the vehicle that was parked on a platform. Yet it wasn't just any vehicle.

It was the Batmobile.

Next to it, on another platform, was the Tumbler.

"Jordan!" Olivia grabbed her arm again and gave her a firm tug. "He's in here."

A frazzled Jordan was shoved into a glass enclosed room where Bruce Wayne lay on a hospital bed. A weeping Barbara Gordon sat on a stool beside the bed, holding his hand.

"Hey, Babs." Olivia came up and gently hugged the girl from behind. "Let's let Jordan look him over now, ok?"

"Ok," Barbara said, still crying. She let Olivia lead her off the stool.

"Would you do me a favor, Barbara?" Bruce asked her.

She eagerly ran back to the side of his bed. "Anything!"

"Call Dick, have him come home," Bruce said. "Do you think you're up to doing that now?"

Barbara nodded as she wiped the tears from her eyes. "Y-Yes. I'll call him home for you, now."

She looked more sturdy, which made Bruce smile. His smile faded into a mask of agony after Barbara, Olivia and Alex left them alone in the enclosed room, which looked like a cross between a medical bay and a science lab. It was well stocked, and looked positively futuristic. Jordan would kill to work in a place like this.

Jordan stared down at the sleek suit of black armor that he wore, then she noted the subtle Bat emblem that was emblazoned across his chest. And she finally realized in that moment the truth.

"You're Batman," she whispered.

"Not anymore," he grimly said.

That answer startled Jordan far more than the fact that she had just discovered Bruce Wayne was the Batman. "What happened to you tonight, Bruce?" Then she shook her head. "Um, should I call you Bruce now, or is it still Batman?"  
"Bruce is fine," he said, with a slight smile. "And Bane happened to me. He broke my back. I can't move my legs, and I have no feeling below my waist."

A stunned Jordan forced herself to remain professional. She glanced around the medical bay. "You wouldn't have an X-ray here, would you?"  
Bruce weakly gestured at a device that hung over the bed. "Even better. An internal body image creator. The controls are over on your side."

"Superb," Jordan said, as she quickly familiarized herself with the controls. "Then why don't we see exactly what the problem is, shall we?"

**B&B**

Robin blended into the shadows of the balcony and peered out at the crowd below. They were scattered about the ballroom beneath him, and they were legion. They wined and dined and had laughed pleasantly enough, for they were essentially the high society of Metropolis. Yet Robin was bothered by the reason they had gathered here tonight, which was to honor the group whom the local media had started calling the Teen Titans.

'Ugh,' Robin thought with digust. 'Wish I could find the journalist who thought _that_ name up, because just the thought of it makes me cringe!'

The mayor of Metropolis had come up with this gathering as a way of thanking the new superhero team that had been such a big help to the city in its dire time of crisis. But Robin had thought it was a bad idea back when he'd first heard of it. Even the rest of the team weren't very enthused, with the exception of Beast Boy, who was always ready to party, no matter what the excuse.

'But it's hard to party when there was still so much work to be done,' Robin thought. While most of the major damage to the city from the battle between Superman and Doomsday had been cleared, the crime wave that shot up in the aftermath of the Man Of Steel's death was still raging onwards.

Then there was this strange new problem, with these bizarre attacks being committed on hospitals, relief centers, and even a church…all by suicidal people, they were basically terrorists. The surviving witnesses in all of the attacks said that, just before they blew themselves up, the attackers all shouted the exact same thing: "Long live Doomsday."

To say that Robin didn't like this new development was putting it very mildly. Was this a new cult that worshipped the brute who killed Superman? Or were these misguided people being used by some super villain to further his own frightening agenda? Either way, it was a new threat on the rise that had to be dealt with, and the Teen Titans, such as they were, could hardly do this while being wined and dined like this.

Still, Robin couldn't begrudge Cyborg, Beast Boy and Starfire, who all stood beaming on the stage below while the mayor offered them Metropolis' official thanks with a key to the city. 'Strange,' he thought with a frown, 'where did Raven go?'

When he felt a rush of air from behind him, Robin quickly turned in a combat stance…only to relax once he saw that it was just Raven. She had materialized behind him, which was an amazing talent of hers that Robin still had yet to get used to.

"Why aren't you at the party?" Robin asked her.

"Why aren't you?" she demurely replied.

Robin shook his head. "For one thing, it didn't feel right for me to be standing around, being slapped on the back by the chief of a police force that hunted down Batman back when he was here during the police convention."

"I would think that, given the present extreme circumstances, the Metropolis Police Department would forgive any past transgressions," Raven said. She looked concerned. "I _am_ curious about something. When did we become known as the Teen Titans?"

Robin smiled at that. "That's another reason why I'm not down there. I'm so not into hero worship, especially if it's _me_ being worshipped. You still haven't said why you skipped the party."

"I, too, am uncomfortable in the spotlight," Raven replied, with a glance at the celebration below. "While I appreciate the offer of thanks from the people of Metropolis, I much prefer the solitude of the shadows."

"You should hang with us in Gotham City sometime," Robin said wistfully. "Plenty of shadows there, even in the daylight."

"You sound like you miss your home."

"Yeah, I guess I am homesick. I'm also wishing Batman were here, helping me figure out the motives of these Doomsday groupies. I can't help but…."

Robin stopped speaking when he noticed something below. One of the waiters, a big guy, was making a beeline towards the stage. Unlike the rest of the wait staff, he looked very anxious, almost edgy, as he walked fast through the crowds.

It was when the waiter roughly shoved past a woman without even stopping that the alarm bells went off in Robin's head. "Raven," he said, as he pointed out the man, "put us down right in front of that guy, right now!"

She held out her hand. When Robin grasped it, she said, _"Azarath Metrion Zinthos." _

Within the blink of an eye, Robin found himself standing in front of the nervous-looking waiter. He stopped short in front of Robin and Raven, then proceeded to rip open his jacket.

His chest was covered with plastic explosives.

"LONG LIVE DOOMS…."

Yet the waiter never managed to finish his proclaimation, because Robin had delivered a fast kick to the man's face that dropped him to the floor like a sack of potatoes.

The celebration was shattered as people began shouting and backed away from them. Several red lights on the bomb pack on the man's chest began to flash ominously. Robin quickly bent over the prone man and looked for a way to disconnect the bomb so it wouldn't still blow up. But for the life of him, he still couldn't find a wire, or a button, that would defuse this deadly package. Not for the first time did he find himself wishing that the Batman were here to help him.

Robin was startled when a slender arm abruptly reached out and pulled out a chip from the circuitry board on the bomb. The arm belonged to Chloe, who let out a sigh of relief as the bomb went dark.

"Talk about letting the chips fall where they may," Robin said, with his own sigh. "Now I'm _really_ glad you decided to come to this soirée after all."

"I couldn't reach you on the comm," Chloe said, as she handed the chip to Raven. "It might have been jammed by the bomber. So I had to come and tell you in person."

"Tell me what? Is it Liv?" Robin urgently asked. He had heard the news stories about Olivia being abducted by this Bane guy. "Is she ok?"

Chloe nodded patiently. "Liv is fine. But it's something else, something extremely urgent. I can't tell you here."

Robin excused himself from the crowd and escorted Chloe to a quiet corner far away from overhearing ears. Once assured they had total privacy, Chloe said, "Batman fought Bane tonight, and he has been hurt very badly."

"Well, that's too bad for Bane, but then he should have known better than to pick a fight with the Dark…."

Chloe shook her head. "I meant Batman. He was the one who was badly hurt tonight."

Robin felt a cold chill sweep up through his body. "What happened? How bad is it?"

"Barbara could barely talk to me through her tears, but she said that Bane broke Batman's back, Robin. He can't walk, and he has no feeling beneath his waist."

"That's not possible!" Robin said furiously. "Nobody can do that to the Batman!"

"Bane did."

She reached out to him, yet Robin, still refusing to believe that Batman could be so badly injured, waved her hand away. "If Bane dealt Batman such a horrendous blow, then how did Liv get saved? Isn't she back home?"

Chloe nodded. There were tears in her eyes. "She was the one who brought Batman back. Liv said that the Joker crashed the party and used an RPG on Bane."

"The Joker?!" Robin said with renewed disgust. A sick sensation began to churn within his stomach as what Chloe had just told him sunk in. "Good God, I've got to get back to Gotham!"

Chloe shook her head. "No. _We_ have to get back to Gotham. I'm coming back with you. Lana has her private jet fully fueled and ready for take off the moment we arrive at Metropolis Airport. That is, if you want me to go with you…."

Robin gently grabbed her shoulder, more for support at this moment than anything else. "I'm so sorry for swatting you away just now," he said. "I just couldn't believe what I was hearing. Yes, of course, I want you to come with me. And thank you so much for offering, especially after what you've just been through, I really appreciate this, Chloe."

"I'm your girl." She leaned in close and gave him a hug. "Where you go, I go."

"It might not be a good idea for you to hug me right now," he cautioned her.

"Not while I'm still dressed as Robin."

"I don't care," she whispered. "I'm never letting go of you."

Robin had to admit that he really needed this embrace from her right now. Yet when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye, he looked over and saw Starfire.

She stood there and stared at them with a look of shock and hurt on her face. "I…I just wanted to…." she struggled to say.

Then Starfire let out a sob as she just turned and ran in the opposite direction. She ignored Robin's pleas to come back.

"What is it?" Chloe asked, concerned. "What's wrong?"

"Oh, crud, it's just a great big misunderstanding," Robin wearily replied. "I told her that I was spoken for, but…."

"But it only just hit her just now, after she saw us hugging," Chloe said in understanding. She glanced at her watch. "I hate to rush you, Robin, but we really should meet the plane at Met-Air."

"Hey, Robin!" Beast Boy said with a smile when he walked over to them. Raven and Cyborg were behind him. "We were wondering what got Starfire so uptight. But now I see! Who's this lovely lady you've been hiding here?"

"I'm going to have to leave Metropolis," Robin calmly told the group. "A crisis has come up in Gotham City. I need to get back there right away."

Beast Boy just nodded, the lop-sided grin still on his face. "Right, right, that's the story you want us to give Starfire while you show this lovely lady a great…OW! Cyborg, dude, what's your beef?!"

Cyborg had flicked his metallic hand up the side of Beast Boy's head. "If you'd just shut up and listen, you'd realize that Robin is being dead serious, here."

"Can we help?" Raven asked Robin.

"You're going to have your hands full here in Metropolis with this damn cult," Robin grimly said. Taking a deep breath, he decided to tell them. "I really wish I can stay and help you, but Batman's been hurt, bad."

Beast Boy looked wounded. "Oh, no…."

Raven lowered her gaze to the floor.

"Is it serious?" Cyborg asked.

"That's what I need to find out now."

"We understand," Cyborg said. "Look, if you need anything, man, anything at all, just call us."

"I will, thanks. And please, explain the situation to Starfire for me, I've got to go right now."

Cyborg nodded. "We got it covered. You go."

As Robin headed towards a side door with Chloe, he overheard Beast Boy say, "Is it me, or are they all dropping like flies, lately?! First Superman, and now Bat…OW! Ok, Cyborg, ok, I got it…I'll shut up, now. Just stop hitting me…sheesh!"

**B&B**

Olivia waited on the center platform of the Batcave with Alex and Barbara. They all stared at the medical bay, where Jordan was busy checking something out on the monitors.

Alex had called Rachel with the news earlier, and a worried Rachel, who was in the midst of getting a late night subpoena for all OHMR operations in Gotham City, had told Alex that she would be right home.

When Barbara pointed at something, Olivia turned, expecting to see Rachel walking out of the elevator. Instead, it was Jordan, who strode out of the medical bay and walked over to them with a grim look on her face.

"I used the imaging machine to get a look at his spine," an ashen-faced Jordan said to them. "And it's not good."  
"How long will he be laid up?" Olivia asked.

A disheartened Jordan let out a heavy sigh. "One of the vertebrae in his back is completely smashed, Liv. It's pulverized. It's gone."

Olivia grabbed both Alex's and Barbara's hands for support. "What does that mean?"

"I'm afraid it means that Bruce Wayne will never walk again."

**To Be Continued...**


	12. Chapter 12

_My thanks to Superstar Kid, thejokersbrother and stargaze29 for their kind words. I appreciate it. _

**Batman & Benson 8**

**Chapter Twelve**

Bane stood on the roof of his present hideout and glared out at the cityscape that lay before him. He was very nearly killed by the Joker, and yet Gotham City coldly went about its business, not caring in the slightest abut Bane's problems.

'I thought this city, and its inhabitants, to be soft, worthless and easy to take over,' he thought. 'But I see now that I was wrong. I underestimated this city, it's not a haven for the weak, it's every bit like the jungle that I had left. And much like the jungle, this city has its own predators, such as the Joker. And if I am truly to seize control of Gotham City, I must first get rid of its predators, all of them.'

He turned and strode downstairs, where he saw an unsteady James Varlis holding a bottle of booze in the rec room. The former senator was by himself, and he carried on a long conversation with an invisible listener until he saw Bane had watched him.

"You stinking masked freaks!" he spat at Bane, his words slurred by the booze. "You've ruined everything! I was a U.S. senator! You hear me? I was a damned U.S. senator! And now look at me, hunted by the very people whom I tried to save. And it's all your fault!"

Bane remained calm as he continued to walk past the rec room, even as Varlis continued to yell and carry on after he had left. 'I owe a lot to James Varlis,' he told himself. 'Yet he can harm me, even if it's unintentional, it doesn't matter. Varlis knows too much; and because of that, he is like a knife at my throat. But still, if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't even be here in the first place. I would still be killing drug dealers for that pig Deles.'

A conflicted Bane continued walking down the hallway until he came to the living room. There, he saw Braddock, Kruse, Mo, Jugsy and Deanna. This was the first time he had stepped foot back here after the fiasco with the Joker, and when they saw him, everyone abruptly got up and started talking at the same time.

Deanna ran into his arms. It felt good for Bane to hold her again.

"My love, you are hurt," she said, as she pulled her hand away. It was covered with blood.

"It's nothing a little Venom won't cure," he told her.

Yet she didn't look comforted by that comment. "You can't be thinking of going back out, not after that just happened."

Bane ignored her when he noticed something was amiss. "Where's Ralph?"

Braddock lowered his head. "Dead. Killed by the Joker."

"I found him with his throat slit," Kruse angrily said. "That was how that maniac got his hands on an RPG."

"If the Joker wants to be the king of the damned underworld, then let him," Deanna abruptly said. "You're too good for this kind of thing."

"I don't run from my enemies," Bane told her. "I snapped the Batman's back in two, and I shall do much, much worse to the Joker. And to do that, I will need the Venom to be three times as potent as you've already made it."

Deanna's eyes grew wide in horror. "I won't do that!"

Bane turned towards her. "You won't?"

"No! The Venom is already five times its ordinary strength, Bane. If I make it any stronger you will…."

She let out a sharp cry of pain as Bane grabbed her by the arm and twisted it. "You will do whatever the hell I tell you to do," he whispered into her ear.

He flung her against the wall, where she slid down to the floor with a gasp.

"Now that's taking care of the little woman," Kruse said with a nasty laugh.

"Only I know how to make the Venom," Deanna cried. "Nobody else! If anything happens to me, you won't have it anymore!"

"That is why you are still alive," Bane told her. "And if I have to, I will chain you to the lab table, day and night, understand?"

She stared at him in a mixture of shock and hatred. "It's changed you, Bane. No, listen to me, my love, the Venom, it's changing you into a monster!"

That made him think once more about how Gotham City was like a jungle, and the Joker was one of its predators. He realized that there was only one way to deal with predators: to be just as ruthless as they were.

To be just as monstrous as they were.

When he overheard Varlis still drunkenly yelling in the other room, Bane said, "Bring the Senator in here, now."

Jugsy and Mo ran out of the room. Within a few seconds, they returned, half dragging/half carrying the smashed James Varlis in their arms.

"What the hell are you doing with me, you masked freak?!" Varlis demanded.

"Shutting your mouth for good." Bane took Varlis into his arms, grabbed the man's head and twisted it until there was a loud snap.

Deanna let out a horrified sob as Bane let the body of James Varlis drop to the floor.

"Damn," Mo said, sounding impressed.

"He was becoming a problem," Bane told Deanna. "Will _you_ become a problem as well?"

"No," she said meekly. She cringed against the wall, with her arms up over her head.

"So you shall make the Venom even stronger than before?" Bane pressed her.

"Yes." Her voice was now a flat monotone. "Whatever you want."

"Good. Mo, escort the good doctor to her lab so that she may begin her work," Bane said. Mo came over and picked Deanna up from the floor. When she paused to stare fearfully at the body on the floor, Mo roughly shoved her out the door.

"I like the way you clean up house," Braddock commented, once Deanna was gone.

"Now that my house is cleaned up, we shall sweep Gotham City itself clean of all the vermin that infest it," Bane said. "Starting with the Joker."

**B&B**

'It's always the case,' Amanda thought, as she walked down the hallway to the front door. 'Whenever I decide to turn in early, that's when some middle of the night crisis pops up!'

Still clad in a robe and slippers, she stared bleary-eyed at the security monitor, which showed a man and a woman standing in front of her door. "Yes?" she said into the microphone.

The man showed his ID up to the camera. "Federal agents, Miss Waller. We need to speak with you, right now."

"Hold on a moment," Amanda said, as he opened the door for them. 'Which so-called superhero got killed this time?' she wondered hopefully.

When she opened the door, the man said, "Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, ma'am. We're with the FBI. You're coming with us."

"What?" Amanda said in shock. "No, I am not. You must be mistaken."

Scully, a woman with flaming red hair, asked, "You _are_ Amanda Waller, the head of the OHMR, are you not?"

"Yes, I am, but…."

Mulder held up a warrant. "We have a warrant for your arrest, Ma'am."

Amanda was so stunned she almost fell back on her butt. She had to grip the doorframe to steady herself. "I'm under arrest? Are you insane?!"

"One might ask the same of you, Miss Waller," Scully tartly replied.

"The citizens of Gotham City don't take too kindly at having an OHMR assault squad lay siege to their city," Mulder curtly explained. "The aircraft, along with several of its crew, have been captured by the GCPD. Apparently, your goons tried to take on the Batman, which was their second big mistake; the first being attacking Gotham City. What gave you the bright idea to launch a full-scale attack on an American city, Ms. Waller?"

Amanda tried to say something, but she was in such shock that her mouth just fell open.

"Would you like to change," Scully offered, "or shall we go as we are?"

Amanda tried frantically to gain control of this situation. "Do you know who I am? I have some very powerful friends in Washington!"

"Good," Mulder said with a nod. "You're going to need them. Because there are some even more powerful people in Washington that are really pissed off at you, lady. Now, are you getting changed, or shall we just tell the Attorney General that you came from a slumber party?"

'Oh, dear Lord,' Amanda thought, as she waved them inside. She turned and numbly went to her bedroom, only to find the woman agent, Scully, was following her.

"She's just making sure you don't get lost while dressing," Mulder called from the door.

'It's a good thing I got some sleep,' Amanda thought with dread, 'because this looks like it's going to be a very long day….'

**B&B**

J'onn placed his elbows on the holo-table and rested his head on his hands as he glumly stared at the holographic image before him.

He was back aboard the spaceship that had carried him, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and Captain Marvel halfway across the known universe in their hunt for Doomsday. They had just searched a planet in the nearby solar system, the only one that had an atmosphere, and discovered that there was no sentient life there, let alone Doomsday.

'The trail had grown cold,' J'onn realized. He glanced around the interior of the ship and saw a barefoot Wonder Woman, having discarded her boots for comfort, sitting in a chair across from him, gazing sternly at the blackness outside the window.

Captain Marvel sat quietly speaking with Green Lantern up by the pilot's console. The ship was presently on autopilot, it's course set for the next planet on the charts, which was again the only life-sustaining world within its system.

And yet, despite this somber mission to track down a killer, all J'onn could think about was his beloved Katie, who waited for him back home in Gotham City. He thought of her smile, and of the loving looks that she always gave him. He even smiled at the memory of the exasperated expressions she would give him from time to time whenever he made an error. "You silly Martian," Katie would always jokingly say, "the answer is right in front of your face!"

J'onn's smile at these pleasant memories vanished when he realized something. Katie was right. Even now, millions of light years away, she was still right! The answer was right in front of him!

J'onn stared at the holograph once more, looking closely at the planets that were arrayed in space in front of him. Then he got an idea.

"Display the planets that Doomsday has visited," he instructed the holo-map.

The holograph highlighted the planets that Doomsday had been to in his merciless crusade of death. And in that moment, J'onn realized something.

"There's a pattern," he said in awe.

This got Wonder Woman's attention. She got up, came over and stood beside him. "Did you say something?"

J'onn excitedly pointed at the highlighted worlds on the holo-map. "This forms a pattern! It's doughnut shaped!"

"Just like a cop," Green Lantern jokingly muttered, "always thinking about doughnuts…."

"It would appear that this cop has made a break in the case," Wonder Woman told him. "If you two would be so kind to join us…."

Once Green Lantern and Captain Marvel stood beside him at the holo-map table, J'onn pointed at the highlighted worlds. "These are the planets that Doomsday has been to. But in the center of the 'doughnut,' there is nothing. Why?"

"There's nothing in that area of space but dead planets," Green Lantern replied. "This map is the latest from Oa; the Guardians know this region very well."

"Perhaps that's why Doomsday's never been in that area, because it's dead," Captain Marvel suggested.

"But look at the pattern," J'onn told them. "It's not strictly a doughnut shape. It's a swirling pattern with a hole in the center. And here," he pointed to a lone tendril that hung off of the pattern, "is Earth. Doomsday's last known destination."

"Great Hera," Wonder Woman said in awe. "It's indeed a map, but one that's showing exactly where Doomsday is going."

"Bring up the next life-sustaining planet within fifty light years of Earth," J'onn asked the holo-map.

It brought up a lone planet, the fourth from its massive sun, which the Oa records have identified as being Naira.

"If Doomsday's still following this pattern, then that's where we'll find him next," J'onn said.

"That's assuming he's still following this particular pattern," Captain Marvel countered. "He could very well have changed course."

"I don't think so," Green Lantern said, as he walked back over to the pilot's console. "Doomsday may be a mighty planet slayer, but he doesn't strike me as being a real creative thinker."

"Meaning he'll still follow this pattern," Captain Marvel said skeptically.

"Think about it," J'onn pressed his case. "Anyone invincible enough to kill Superman will have a very high opinion of his abilities. He would see no need to change his route."

"Because someone as powerful as Doomsday wouldn't feel the need to hide from anybody," Wonder Woman chimed in. She nodded. "Yes, it makes sense. He would stick to this pattern."

Captain Marvel, now convinced, nodded. "Very well, let's change course, shall we?"

"Already doing that," Green Lantern reported, as he punched in the new coordinates into the pilot's console. "New course for Naira is now laid in, and here we go. ETA, ten hours."

"Let's hope Doomsday hasn't already left by the time we get there," Captain Marvel said.

"Even if he does, it matters not," Wonder Woman said, with a smile at J'onn. "For I have no doubt that our determined detective here shall pick up his scent once more."

For the first time in days, J'onn felt something he had not felt in a long time. It was the feeling of hope.

**B&B**

Stay strong for him.

Rachel could not believe those four words had been uttered to her by Alfred, as she rode down alone in the elevator to the Batcave. She had been already told about Bruce's condition by Alfred the moment she arrived at Wayne Manor. After she left Alfred, who had to return to the side of a sleeping Jonah, Rachel had wanted to do nothing but cry out in horror and pain at the very thought that her lover, her partner, her very best friend was now unable to walk.

Yet Rachel kept her calm, calling on the very same inner reserves that she used often in her job as the District Attorney to at least maintain a placid façade…while underneath, she roiled with agony, fear and anger. And through this storm that surged within her, a single thought emerged, one that shocked Rachel to her very core.

'At least he's still alive.'

She didn't even have time to process it, for the elevator doors opened just then, exposing her to the crowd of people who stood in the Batcave. There was Olivia, who chatted quietly with Jordan. Alfred had also informed Rachel earlier that the medical examiner had been taken into their confidence. Dick was also there, along with Chloe and Lana Lang. They stood talking with Alex and Barbara.

Rachel walked over to Olivia and gave her a tight hug. "I'm so glad to see you here," she whispered into Olivia's ear. "I'm really glad you're safe and sound."

Olivia looked guilty. "I just wish I could have done more for him…."

"You brought him back home, safe and sound. You've done a superb job, Liv."

Olivia shook her head. "But Bane used me as the damned bait. If I hadn't have let myself be kidnapped, he never would have had to…."

"No, don't you _dare _blame yourself," Rachel firmly told her. She gently held Olivia's sad face in her hands. "Listen to me, Liv. You are not to blame here, Bane is. And he shall be dealt with in due time. Ok?"

Olivia nodded timidly. But Rachel knew her so well; she realized that Olivia's compassionate and protecting nature would make her feel guilty for this. She decided to press the point. "Bruce will need you. Now, more than ever, he will need you, Liv…just as he'll need the rest of us. Ok?"

Olivia nodded again. Yet this time, she seemed more confident, back to being her old self. "Got it, Rachel. And thanks."

After they hugged once more, Rachel turned to the glass-enclosed medical bay, where she saw Bruce lying in the bed. "Why is he alone?"

"He _wanted_ to be alone," Olivia explained. "I think he's bracing himself…for seeing you."

'He's not the only one,' Rachel thought with an involuntarily shudder.

She walked into the glass enclosed room and forced herself to give Bruce a smile. Yet the knowing look on his face broke her resolve, and her smile faded as tears flooded her eyes.

Bruce held up a hand. "Hello, Rachel."

Seeing him like this, severely injured, yet stoic, reminded Rachel of a time, many years ago, when they were children. Bruce had fallen down the boarded up well in the garden and had broken his leg. After his father had taken him out, the young Bruce had maintained a calm, even-tempered expression, despite the fact that Rachel knew he had to have been in a great deal of pain.

Bruce had that same look right now. And as Rachel took his hand in her own, she couldn't help but be even further saddened by the fact that, in light of an even graver injury, Bruce still felt the need to be brave. Yet Rachel wasn't sure she wanted him to break down and cry. Because, to do so would mean he was without hope. And as long as Bruce Wayne stayed determined and driven, there remained even the slightest of hope.

Stay strong for him.

Now Rachel understood why Alfred had told her that. And as she held Bruce's hand, she gave it a squeeze as she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. "We'll get through this," Rachel said, her voice a firm whisper.

"You're a lot more confident than I am," he replied dejectedly.

"Whatever confidence I have, I got from you," she told him. "You taught me to be brave, and to face any given situation head on. And God knows we've been through hell and back together so far, Bruce. So if you think I'm going to let you slack off now, then you're sadly mistaken, Mr. Wayne."

She was pleased to see the slight wavering in his eyes was now gone, replaced by his familiar confident gaze. Rachel gently squeezed his hand once more and asked, "We'll get through this?"

"We'll get through this," Bruce firmly replied.

She bent down and hugged him tightly. They had a long, hard road ahead of them. But for now, this was a start.

**B&B**

"That's just what he needs right now," Olivia murmured. She stood with the others while they all watched as Rachel hugged Bruce within the glass enclosed medical bay.

Alex came up from behind her and proceeded to knead Olivia's neck and shoulder muscles. Olivia just closed her eyes and enjoyed this little slice of heaven for as long as it lasted.

She smiled as Alex then placed her head on Olivia's shoulder and hugged her from behind. "How long have you been up, now? You should rest."

"There's still so much to do," Olivia wearily replied.

"No, it's over, Liv," Alex sadly whispered. "Batman is finished. At least Bruce can still have a life, but it's…."

She was interrupted by the Batcomputer, which sounded the alarm as it flashed one word: Metropolis.

As they all ran over to see what latest calamity had struck the besieged city, Lana moaned, "Oh, no…what could it be _this_ time?"

**B&B**

"YOU WILL ALL DIE!" the man screamed.

Cyborg held out his hand. "Just take it easy, buddy…."

The man stood with his trench coat wide open, his chest completely covered with another intricate explosive device. But this one looked a lot more deadly than the one sported by the other dude who crashed their party recently. They were in the main court of Siegel Square, a popular shopping mall in Metropolis where things had just started to get back to normal, when this mess had sprung up.

This creep had ran into the crowds, screaming "long live Doomsday", while exposing his bomb. Before he left for Gotham City, Robin had set up a computer monitoring program which would send them an alert on their comms should another one of these Doomsday maniacs try an insane move like this. Once Cyborg caught the breaking story, Raven instantly teleported him and the rest of the Teen Titans directly to the scene.

Thankfully, the sight of them popping into existence right in front of him made the crazed bomber hesitate. Starfire and Beast Boy quickly used this lull to try and evacuate as many shoppers as they could. But there were still way too many people lurking about to make Cyborg comfortable.

"Keep him occupied," Raven said, "I shall teleport him out of here."

Cyborg grabbed her arm. "No, it's too risky. He'll kill himself and you!"

"Better me than these innocents," she said. Raven raised her hands and started to say, "Azarath Met…."

Just then a blue and red flash sped by them and shot towards the bomber.

And the bomber abruptly vanished.

Both Cyborg and Raven stood there, staring open-mouthed at the now empty space where a major threat once stood.

Beast Boy, who had shape-shifted into a large, hairy gorilla for some reason, had lumbered over to them and asked, "Umm, what just happened?"

**B&B**

Kara had never intended to get back in action so soon. In fact, she had intended to spend a quiet night with Martha at Clark's apartment in the city, going through Clark's stuff, until Kara heard the screams with her super hearing. Then she heard the man shouting "Long Live Doomsday!"

She judged the chaos she heard to be not that far from Clark's place, just straight over at Siegel Square, yet Kara was torn about just leaving Martha alone in her dead son's apartment.

But when Kara glanced at Martha, the woman just stared expectantly back at her. The look on her face told Kara that she knew what was about to happen, and she was all right with it. "Go ahead. I'll be fine," Martha said. "Really, Kara, go. It's up to you to save them now. Clark would have wanted it this way."

Kara was about to ask how Martha knew there was trouble without having being told about it, but she thought the better of it and nodded. Kara then took off in a running leap off the terrace of Clark's apartment. She had quickly stripped off her civilian clothes, revealing her Supergirl outfit, as she soared through the night air.

It felt strange to be out here like this, flying through the night sky, without him. The very thought of Kal-El, of the fact that he was gone, had made her want to burst into tears again. The overwhelming feeling of grief had made Kara hesitate, and she hovered unsteadily in the air…until she was reminded of something that Martha had just told her.

"_It's up to you to help them now_."

'It's really up to me, now,' she realized. 'Just me.'

"_Clark would have wanted it this way_."

"And I won't let him down," she vowed. "I promise."

Kara's long blond hair billowed in the raging winds as she swept her arms forward, both fists clenched tightly, and willed herself on with pure determination.

When she arrived at Siegel Square, Kara dove straight down towards the bomber and shot back up into the sky, grabbing him by the collar as she did so. Within five seconds, they were already five hundred feet above the city.

"I'LL SET IT OFF!" the man screamed. He wiggled in her grasp like a fish on a hook. "I'LL SET OFF THE BOMB!"

"Be my guest," Kara casually called over her shoulder. "I've got nothing better to do right now…."

Once they were up over half a mile above Metropolis, Kara held the man out so that they were face to face. And she was pleased to see that, in the thinning air up here, he was already gasping for breath.

And so she took him up even higher.

"Finally," she muttered, once the man had passed out from lack of air.

Kara examined the complex bomb on his chest with her X-Ray vision, then quickly disabled it.

She brought him back down to Siegel Square, where Kara delivered the bomber into the hands of the Metropolis police. "It's great to have you back, Supergirl," one of the uniformed officers told her.

She was about to reply, when her super hearing picked up something else. It was another man, speaking quickly and anxiously in a low whisper. "She got him…the super bitch got him…it's up to me…it's now all up to me…."

"Another one!" Kara snarled, as she rose up in the air to get a better look at him. There he was, mixed in with the crowds behind the police barricade. Kara could see the bomb beneath his coat with her X-Ray vision.

She swept her arms back and dived down right at him. The only problem was that he saw her coming, and set off the bomb. She saw him reach under his coat and flick the master switch.

There was only one thing to do.

She landed directly in front of him, gripped the bomb through his coat, and ripped it from his chest. He let out a squawk as Kara effortlessly tore his coat apart. Then she turned and flung the bomb into the night sky as hard as she could, using every ounce of her super strength.

The bomb seemed to shrink in size as it shot away from her at great speed. And then it exploded. It was a golden ball explosion that briefly lit up the city as it expanded into nothingness. Kara judged the explosion to be well over three miles above the ground, keeping Metropolis well clear of the shock waves.

The man was about to run when Kara's hand shot out and grabbed him by the neck, stopping him in his tracks. He let out a "Grrk" sound as she rose up into the air, still holding him, and scanned the crowds for any more crazy bombers. Thankfully, Siegel Square looked clean.

Kara landed once more and shoved the second would-be bomber into the open arms of the Metropolis police. And when she did this, something amazing happened.

The crowds all around her broke into thunderous applause.

Kara was staggered to see men, women and children all furiously clapping at her. Many men and women had tears of joy streaming down their faces, and parents held up their small children so that they would see better see Supergirl. A trio of girls all screamed and waved excitedly at her, as if Kara was a rock star.

She was so overwhelmed, so taken aback by this wave of love and respect, that Kara was tempted to just fly off. Yet when she heard someone call her name, she turned to see three superheroes and what looked like a large gorilla come walking over to her.

"Teen Titans, is it?" she asked. "I've seen you guys on the news."

"Oh, God," the gorilla muttered, as he gazed at her in a mixture of awe and lust. "Oh, wow, she is just so…oh, wow!"

Kara, who had seen her fair share of strange things by now, just nodded in the direction of the talking ape and said, "What's with King Kong?"

"That's Beast Boy, and don't mind him; he's just an idiot," a young black man with cybernetic parts said. "I'm Cyborg. This is Raven and Starfire."

Kara nodded in greeting. "They call me Supergirl."

"Oh, yeah, we know who you are," a grateful looking Starfire said. "And we're so very glad to have you back, Supergirl."

Kara smiled slightly, as she realized that was also what the cop had said to her before. "Thanks," Kara said softly. "But the truth is, I never really left."

The crowds were still cheering wildly, almost to the point where the police were having trouble keeping them in check. Kara decided it was time to take her leave. "I'll see you guys around," she told the Teen Titans. "If you should ever need an extra hand, you can count on me."

Then she took off into the night sky, and when she did, another collective roar of applause and shouts rose up from the appreciative crowds. It echoed after her as she flew through the canyon of buildings, towards home.

When she reached Clark's apartment, Martha was waiting for her with a hug. "You were wonderful, my darling. I just saw it on the news. Oh, Clark would have been so proud of you!"

Kara's eyes flooded with tears as she and the old woman stood in a tight embrace. 'Rest easy, Clark,' Kara thought, 'your city is safe for another night.'

**B&B**

"OH, YEAH!" Dick shouted joyously when they saw Supergirl deliver the second Doomsday bomber to the police on the main Batcomputer monitor. "Case closed! _That's_ what I'm talking about!"

He and Chloe then hugged each other tightly.

"Thank you, Kara," Lana said with a sigh of relief. "Thank you so much."

Olivia watched the proceedings with a coolness that alarmed Alex. She rubbed her lover's back and said, "Are you all right, sweetie?"

Olivia, who still stared at the screen, just shook her head and said, "You're wrong."

"What? I'm wrong? About what?"

"When you said before that it was all over, you were wrong, Alex." Olivia gestured at the screen. "As we've just seen there, it's never over. Evil will just keep on coming, in one shape or another, one way or another, until somebody just has to stand up to it. That's what we saw Supergirl do just now. And that's what _we_ must do here, before Gotham City falls into ruin."

"But it's all over for us, isn't it?" Barbara asked sadly. "Or at least it will be once word gets out that Batman is no longer out there."

Olivia firmly shook her head. "No, sweetie, Batman may not be able to fight for this city now, but we can. Right, Dick? Or, should I say, Robin?"

Dick had a solemn look of approval on his face as he nodded. "Couldn't agree more, Liv."

Olivia glanced back at Barbra and added, "What about you, Batgirl, are you in, as well?"

"Oh, Gawd, yeah! But will you man the Batcomputer if I'm going to be out running around with Robin?"

Olivia gazed at Chloe and said, "Actually, I was wondering if _you_ could do that for us, Chloe. Or, should I call you Oracle?"

"I'd be honored," Chloe said softly, looking touched. "I promised Dick I'd help out in any way I can, and I would. By the way, did I just get a superhero name? Cool!"

"And what exactly will you be doing, Liv?" Dick asked.

Olivia just smiled knowingly at him. "Well, for starters, you can call me Huntress…."

**To be continued...**


	13. Chapter 13

_My thanks to stargaze29 and thejokersbrother for their kind words. My apologies to all for not being to update as often as I'd like. Rest assured that I am determined to finish this story._

**Batman & Benson 8**

**Chapter Thirteen**

"I DON'T KNOW!" the man cried. "I SWEAR, I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT!"

The Metropolis Police Inspector, a burly man by the name of Dan Turpin, pounded his fist on the table in the interrogation room. "Give me a damned break!" he snarled. "We found you with the bomb strapped to your body. Supergirl caught you and hauled you right to us, and now you're going to sit there and tell me you're completely innocent?!"

The same man who was so willing to cause a tremendous amount of death and destruction just a few hours ago now broke down into tears. "I swear, I don't know what's going on! Last thing I remember was getting a meal at the homeless shelter, and then I woke up in the jail cell, and they were all calling me a terrorist!"

"So you're saying you're not a member of this Doomsday cult?"

"I lost both my home and my job the night Doomsday killed Superman and destroyed Metropolis," the man cried. "Why in hell would I worship that monster?!"

Turpin took a deep breath as he stood back from the man. Then he glanced at the two way mirror and gave a little shrug.

Commissioner Henderson, who stood in the observation room with Kara and Cyborg, tapped his first on the glass, indicating to Turpin to come out.

When they met the inspector in the hallway, Turpin shook his head and said, "It's just like the other guy that Supergirl caught, as well as the jerk whom Robin and Raven took down at the Teen Titan gala; he knows absolutely nothing."

"Keep on him, as well as the other two," Henderson said. "This is the first group of these bastards whom we've captured alive and, one way or another, I want answers."

"Yes, Commissioner," Turpin said.

Henderson led Kara and Cyborg into his office, which had a commanding view of the devastation that had been brought to Metropolis. There were still large columns of black smoke that rose up in the sky, pouring out from craters where office buildings once stood.

Kara wanted nothing more than to be out there, helping with the rescue and cleanup, but since she caught the two would-be bombers last night, she had become caught up in this investigation at both the behest of the MPD, as well as the Teen Titans.

She glanced at Cyborg, who had been really eager to have Kara involved…to the point where he brought up asking if she would like to join the Titans. Kara was so flattered at having been asked that she quickly had said yes. In a way, she was grateful for all of this busy work, for it kept her mind occupied to the point where she rarely thought about her cousin, Kal-El. And whenever she thought of him these days, Kara would start crying endlessly.

Henderson leaned up against the front of his desk with a thoughtful look and asked, "Well, if anybody's got anything to add, feel free to speak up, because _I'm_ fresh out of ideas…."

"Robin had the theory that this might be the work of some kind of a criminal mastermind," Cyborg offered. "That's what this looks like to me, Commissioner."

"Where _is_ Robin, by the way?" Henderson asked. "I haven't seen him since your gala."

"He returned to Gotham City," Cyborg said. "Needed to take care of some business."

"Ah, yes." Henderson nodded grimly. "I've spoken with Commissioner Gordon earlier, and he said there's another big war for control of the criminal underworld brewing in Gotham. They say the Joker's back, and he's squaring off against some new madman in a mask." Henderson wearily shook his head. "When it rains, it pours…."

"That's what makes me think these attacks might be the work of some mastermind," Cyborg said. "It could be somebody trying to take advantage of the fact that Metropolis has been laid low. The only problem is, I really can't think of who it might be."

Kara stared at one of the untouched buildings in Metropolis, a large spiraling office complex with a massive 'L' on its side. "I can think of one criminal mastermind," she spoke up. "And he's just a few blocks away."

"Luthor?" Henderson didn't look convinced. "What would he have to gain from a plot like this?"

"I'll go ask him," she said.

Henderson held out his hand. "Wait a minute, Supergirl, Luthor's been a regular angel during all of this. He's personally funded more than half the rescue and cleanup missions in the city."

"I'll ask him nicely," Kara sarcastically promised.

Thirty seconds later, she was airborne, headed for the Lex Corp building. As she got close to the immense structure, Kara did a sweep with her X-ray vision, only to be stopped by the fact that the walls were lead-lined. Kara took note of the various cameras and sensors that followed her as she flew around the building. Then she saw the man himself; Luthor stood waving at her on a heliport platform beside his personal penthouse.

"Welcome, Supergirl, and bravo!" the bald billionaire said, as he clapped his hands. "You did a remarkable feat last night. Not only did you stop those maniacs, but you gave renewed hope to this beleaguered city!"

'Well, he's certainly not acting like I just spoiled his latest plot,' Kara thought. She glanced over at Mercy Graves, Luthor's personal assistant and bodyguard, who glared back at Kara with bare-faced hatred. But then, Mercy always had that look on her face, anyway.

"Been busy trying to find out who's behind these attacks," she said.

Luthor frowned at her. "You couldn't find out anything from the men you captured?"

Kara shook her head. If Luthor was involved, he wasn't showing any sign of it. "They're completely oblivious; they're acting like they were in a trance when it happened."

"How strange," Luthor said. He then grew solemn. "Supergirl, I know that your cousin and I…well, we never saw eye to eye…."

'That's putting it mildly!' Supergirl angrily thought.

"But I just wanted to give you my condolences, nevertheless," Luthor said softly. "Superman shall be sorely missed."

"Thanks," Supergirl said curtly.

"Mr. Luthor," Mercy called, as she raised her hand to the bluetooth device in her ear, "I've just been told that the extra bedding has arrived at the shelter, but they say there's no more room. Now they're saying that they need an extra tent for the refugees."

Luthor shook his head wearily. "If it's not one thing, it's another. Excuse me, Supergirl, but I'd better deal with this personally."

"Not a problem," she said, as she rose up into the air. "I've got a patrol to complete, anyway."

"Keep up the great work, Supergirl!"

'Stuff it!' she thought, as she flew away. Kara was annoyed with herself. For all she knew, Luthor could have been the mastermind behind these attacks, and yet there was no way she could tell. Not for the first time did she wish that Kal-El was here. He would know how to handle Luthor.

'Heck,' Kara thought, as she flew back to police headquarters, 'I'd love for the Batman to tackle this case. With his deductive reasoning, he'd probably crack it in no time. Wonder what he's been up to, lately?'

B&B

Bruce lay at the bottom of the well, a broken man.

He didn't remember falling down the well, only that he woke up laying in the muck at the very bottom.

And he couldn't move his legs.

He sat up and tried wiggling his toes, at the very least, then felt a cold feeling of fear stab his insides when he saw that he could not even do that. He stared up at the top of the well, and saw his father, Thomas Wayne, peering down at him with mild interest.

It was at this moment that Bruce realized that he was dreaming; his subconscious was trying to wrestle with the fact that he could no longer walk, and the result was this stupid dream.

"If you know the answer to everything, Bruce, then why can't you walk?" his father called down to him.

Bruce let out an annoyed sigh. Now in this silly dream, his father was not only back from the dead, but he was a psychic, too. Usually, when Bruce realized he was dreaming, that was when he woke up. But for one to continue well past the realization that it was just a dream was very unusual…and annoying.

"If you won't answer that question, Bruce, then maybe you'll answer another one," his father said.

"Don't you dare ask me 'why do we fall'!" Bruce angrily yelled up at him. "Not now!"

"I would not ask a question to which you already know the answer," Thomas Wayne calmly replied. "My question is this: if you know this to be but a mere dream, then why don't you stand up? After all, you can do anything in a dream, right?"

"I CAN'T!" Bruce angrily roared up the well at his father. "And none of your platitudes will help me this time!"

Thomas Wayne knelt down at the edge of the well. "Do you want to get out of here, or not, Bruce?"

"I want to walk again!"

"You can do both." Thomas Wayne reached down with one arm. The well seemed to shrink in size as his hand hovered tantalizingly close to Bruce. "Take my hand."

"WHY ARE YOU TORTURING ME LIKE THIS?!" an enraged Bruce shouted at him.

"It's just a dream, isn't it, Bruce? So stand up. Once you do, you can take my hand, and I'll pull you out of the well."

"Why bother?" Bruce asked in despair. "It's just a dream; it won't mean anything, anyway."

"Everything we do means something, Bruce, whether we know it or not. Now do you want to get out of this well, or not?"

"I want this damned dream to end," Bruce said wearily.

Thomas nodded. "Fair enough. Then stand up and take my hand."

Taking a deep breath, Bruce pushed himself up with his arms…then, to his surprise, his legs responded when he urged them to move. They bent under him, and then propelled him upwards until he stood up without any effort.

'Don't congratulate yourself, this is still just a dream,' he bitterly told himself.

"Are you taking my hand, Bruce, or what?" Thomas called.

'Anything to end this stupid dream!' Bruce thought, as he grabbed his father's hand.

As expected, Thomas Wayne pulled him up to the top of the well. And when Bruce stood before his father, he found himself wishing deeply that this was a true reunion, instead of just a dream.

"This may be just a dream," Thomas said, once again reading his mind. "But what you do matters, Bruce…whether it's in a dream, or out in the real world, never forget that."

"I won't be able to stand up out in the real world," Bruce told him. "And you won't be there to pick me up."

"No, but you can still fight, and as you've just proved in this dream, you've still got plenty of fight left in you," Thomas said. "I'm not saying that it will be easy, son, but don't ever give up. You hear me? Don't _ever_ give up. For in the end, the battle will be well worth it."

"I won't, Dad," Bruce solemnly swore, "I promise; I will never stop fighting."

"Wha…what?" a dumbfounded Rachel said.

Bruce was startled to abruptly see his father was gone. And in his place was Rachel, clad only in a pajama top, her hair mussed up from sleep. She half sat, half lay next to him in the bed. "Bruce, who were you talking to?"

Bruce glanced down at the brace that his paralyzed lower body was bolted into, and he swore that, somehow, someway, he would be free of it. He would walk again soon.

'Thanks, dad, for the reminder that I'm a fighter,' Bruce gratefully thought.

"Just making a promise to somebody," Bruce replied to Rachel. He gripped her hand in his and added, "Let come what may, Rachel, because I'm not giving up."

**B&B**

Olivia strode into police headquarters that morning feeling oddly frightened. It was her first time back at work; in fact, it was her first time back at all. According to the media, she was still a captive of Bane. But Olivia planned to change that bit of news right now.

She rode the elevator all the way up to the top floor to Gordon's office. When Olivia emerged, the commissioner's secretary did a double take when she saw her. "Inspector Benson?!"

"Um, yeah," Olivia said, somewhat sheepishly. "I was wondering if I could see the commissioner?"

The secretary continued to stare at her as if she wasn't really sure if Olivia was real. Then she snapped out of it by nodding and saying, "Yes, yes, of course!"

She went to the doors of Gordon's office, knocked on them, then opened them and said, "Sorry to bother you, sir…."

"I'm in the middle of something very important, here, Madge," Gordon said. "Can't it wait?"

"She's back, sir," the secretary said, comically gesturing at Olivia. "Inspector Benson, sir, she's right here!"

"WHAT?!" Gordon cried. "I'll call you back. Send her in, now! Liv, you out there?!"

"Yeah," Olivia said, as she entered Gordon's office. She nodded her thanks to the secretary, who closed the doors behind her as she left. "I wanted to make sure I was interrupting anything."

"Are you kidding me?!" Gordon said, as he came around the desk and gave her a hug. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine, sir," Olivia replied with a wince. While she was grateful for this show of affection from her boss, the hug he gave her woke up some aches and pangs throughout her body. Maybe she should have listened to Alex and Alfred's advice and waited until tomorrow. But, she was here, now, so she might as well plow on through. "Batman saved me."

"Here, sit down, tell me all about it," Gordon said, as he gestured to a pair of comfy chairs.

Olivia told him the little white lie about how Batman rescued her from Bane, leaving out any details, explaining that she was only partly conscious at the time. It was important for Olivia that Gordon thought the Batman was still out there, protecting the city; because, if Gordon believed it, then that went a long way to convincing the rest of Gotham that their Dark Knight was still on patrol.

Fortunately, Gordon bought her story. "I saw the CCTV footage of you being abducted by Bane from the hospital that night, Liv, and I gotta say…." He shook his head. "Well, never mind that. I'm just damn glad to see you back here and all right."

"Thank you, sir." Olivia truly appreciated hearing him say this. She glanced at the TV set, which he had on, and saw news footage of Supergirl flying over flaming wreckage. "What's this?"

"Metropolis," Gordon said with sadness in his voice. "God bless that kid for coming back when she did, because those poor souls really need her right now."

Olivia watched, alarmed, as several masked men openly fired upon Supergirl with automatic weapons. "Looks like a war zone over there!"

"It practically is," Gordon said with a sigh. "Commissioner Henderson informs me that several of the street gangs that have popped up after Superman's death have now joined forces. It's taking everything that the MPD has just to keep order in the streets. Like I said before, thank God Supergirl came back, but as you can see here, even she has her hands full."

Olivia watched with alarm as Supergirl took out a squad of shooters, only to be ambushed by another group of armed men. She seemed to have the situation well in hand, but the sheer amount of violence being directed at her was scary.

'Will that be what Gotham City will be like,' Olivia wondered, 'if the criminal element ever finds out the Batman is down for the count?'

"Liv?" Gordon said, looking concerned.

Olivia realized that he had been calling her name while she had been so deep within her thoughts, she zoned out on him. "Sorry, sir…."

"You sure you're all right?" Gordon asked. "Why don't you take the rest of the day off. Hell, take the whole week…."

Yet that was the last thing Olivia had wanted. After seeing the lawlessness that Metropolis had descended into, she felt the urgent need to prevent the same thing from happening here in Gotham. "Are you going to announce that I'm safe and sound to the press, sir?"

"Yes, but you don't have to be present for that."

Olivia felt just the opposite. She had a powerful urge to tell Gotham City, to tell the world, that the Batman had saved her; that the Dark Knight was still on the prowl. Even if this lie only lasted for a while, it might still buy them enough time for Bruce to come back, once he heals.

'Assuming he heals at all,' a dark little voice at the back of her mind reminded Olivia. 'Bruce might be paralyzed for the rest of his life….'

"I like to be there for the press conference, if that's all right with you, sir," Olivia said firmly. "I'd like to tell my story personally, about how Batman saved me."

"Of course," Gordon said. "I'll schedule the press conference for this afternoon. In the meantime, why don't you go to your office and get some rest?"

"I think I might do just that, sir. Thanks."

"I'll call you when it's set up," Gordon said, as she left the office.

When Olivia went down to the SVU bullpen, Linda held several boxes of printer ink in her hands as she spoke to the assembled detectives. "There's plenty of printer cartridges over in the supply closet," she chided them, "I don't know why nobody….WHOA, SHE'S BACK!"

Linda dumped the boxes on the floor as she ran over and gave a smiling Olivia a hug. Mike, Andrea and several others within the SVU bullpen all came over and gave Olivia a warm welcome.

"Thank you all so very much for the warm welcome," Olivia said, feeling deeply touched at the outpouring of emotion that her "kids" had displayed for her.

As she told them what had happened, Olivia noticed that Alex and Katie had stood in the doorway of her office, watching her. Once the big welcome was over, Olivia went over to her office, where Alex asked, "You all right?"

"Yes, I'm fine," Olivia assured her.

"You sure?" Alex prodded, looking concerned. "You seem tired. Maybe you should go home early."

"I was just up to see Gordon, and we're going to have an official press conference announcing my rescue at the hands of the Batman. And…." Olivia stopped, looking startled at the sight before her.

Katie was crying profusely. "I-I'm sorry," she said, as she wiped tears from her eyes. "I'm just relieved to see you're all right, Inspector, but I can't help but be reminded that J'onn is still out there, searching for a monster…."

"Alex, close the door, would you?" Olivia asked, as she took a still-weeping Katie into her arms.

"I just want him back, safe," Katie said, as she cried against Olivia's shoulder. "I want J'onn home, with me."

"I know you do, sweetie," Olivia said. "We all want the same thing."

"This has been a very harsh time for us all," Alex said, her voice sounding rough. "Been a little hard for us to get through the day, sometimes, you know?"

"But we're still here," Olivia replied. She glanced at Alex, then at Katie. "Right? We're still here, and still breathing. And as long as we've got some breath left in us, watch out, world!"

Katie chuckled as she nodded. "Yeah. That's what J'onn would have said to me, too. Maybe not _exactly_ like that, but…."

All three women laughed at that comment. The phone rang, and when Olivia picked it up, it turned out to be Gordon, who informed her that the press conference was scheduled for one pm.

Olivia thanked him, and then hung up. Just as she was about to tell Alex and Katie the news, Olivia was interrupted by a large explosion. It was so big that it rattled the windows of her office. Olivia, Alex and Katie immediately ran to the windows to look outside.

Olivia couldn't see any damage on the street directly outside police headquarters, but she did see about a dozen police cars, with emergency lights alit and sirens wailing, all take off from the garage directly below them.

Katie pointed. "There it is!"

Olivia saw a black cloud mushrooming up into the sky above the skyline. "Where is that, the Ironview Section?"

"Looks a little closer," Alex replied. "Like somewhere around Triad Square? But I didn't think there was anything there that could blow up."

"One of the Joker's old haunts is located there," Olivia said. "An old, closed down toy store…."

**B&B**

"This is the place," Kruse said, as he parked the van in the parking lot.

Bane stared up at the large clown face that hung over the front doors of the abandoned toy store. The name of the place had long ago fallen down, but Bane was told by his informer, a drunken waste of a man who used to serve the Joker, that this used to be the location of Apogee Toys before it went out of business.

Bane thanked the man by breaking his neck; he didn't want to take the chance that the old drunk might decide to make a little extra money by warning his old boss that Bane was looking for him.

Bane stepped out of the van and stormed up to the front doors, which were chained up and locked. The chances of the Joker still being here were slim, he knew, but Bane was eager to pick through the remains of one of the Joker's old hideouts, if for no reason than to see what clues he could discover about his enemy. Perhaps, if he was really lucky, he might find the Joker's new hideout.

Once he reached the door, Bane grabbed the lock and crushed it in his hands. Then he effortlessly pulled apart the chains. But when he pushed the door inwards, Bane saw a cord had been attached to it, and as soon as he stretched the cord, there was a popping sound.

An all too familiar voice emitted from the clown's head above the door: "You shouldn't go poking around abandoned old buildings, Bane! They might blow up on ya!"

"BANE!" Kruse yelled at him in terror from the van.

But Bane was already running for his life as the clown head began to laugh in the hyena-like giggle of the Joker. It was the last thing Bane heard just before the explosion.

The blast knocked him down to the ground, but Bane was unharmed, thanks to the new high potency Venom he now had running through his veins. He rolled over on his back and saw the toy store was now a large conflagration.

Kruse bent down next to him and said, "You ok?"

Bane got to his feet and dusted himself off. "We should leave," he said. "Before this blast calls forth the GCPD."

"Looking forward to the day we won't have to keep running away like rats," Kruse said, as they walked back to the van.

As he got into the van, Bane promised, "That day is coming, mi amigo. And when it does, I shall have the Joker's severed head impaled on a spike for all in Gotham to see!"

"Should be a nice thing to visit with the kids," Kruse said sarcastically, as he drove away.

"It shall serve as a warning showing all what happens to those who dare to cross me," Bane growled.

"You'd better get another spike for that Benson bitch, as well," Kruse muttered angrily. "I'm still aching from that rocket she shot at us!"

"The day of reckoning is coming for _all_ of our enemies," Bane swore, "including Olivia Benson."

**B&B**

Olivia returned to Wayne Manor that night in time to help Alex tuck Jonah into bed. Then, they had dinner while watching the news in the living room of their private suite. Olivia took special interest in the press conference that she and Gordon gave earlier that day, which was being run on TV now.

"It looks like it went well," Alex commented.

"It did," Olivia said. "The main thing was that I was able to get the message out that Batman is still out there."

"Speaking of which, they're still not back yet," Alex said. "Bruce and Rachel; they're still not back from the hospital."

"Yeah, well, we figured that, due to Bruce's injury, they might keep him for a while," Olivia said.

"No, Liv, everybody pretty much expected that he would stay there for a long time," Alex bluntly told her.

Olivia glanced at her lover. "What are you saying? That he might not ever walk again? I realize that, Alex. I've taken it into consideration."

"You've taken it into consideration?" Alex asked, with a shake of her head. "Liv, what are you doing, here? I mean, you've just told Gotham City that Batman is alive and well. Why are you raising everybody's hopes, only to see them get dashed?"

"Because we need Batman, Alex."

"Batman is gone, Liv. I mean, at least he can still have some kind of a life, thank God. But Bruce's career as the Dark Knight is over."

"Have you seen what Metropolis looks like, lately?" Olivia asked. "Roving gangs shooting at everything in sight, not to mention a wacked-out cult of psychos who worship Doomsday. We're in for that kind of a nightmare if word ever gets out that the Batman is gone. If I can at least hold that back for a while, then maybe that will give Bruce the time he needs to come back. And even if he can't come back…I don't know, we'll work something out, but the point is, Alex, every day that people believe the Batman is still watching over them is another day that we won't be living in some apocalyptic hell like Metropolis is in now."

Alex caressed Olivia's face with her hand. "As usual, you are so loving, and caring, and I know this is coming from your desire to help people, Liv. I get that, and I love you all the more for it."

"But?" Olivia offered.

"But," Alex began, "I'm afraid that in doing this, you're just taking on the very same mantle of saving Gotham City that Bruce first took on when he became Batman. And it damned near killed him, just as I'm afraid it might kill you, if you're not careful."

"I'm just trying to keep hope in people's hearts by keeping the Batman myth alive," Olivia said. "But I have no intention of killing myself over it. If things get too hairy, I promise I'll back away. _We'll_ back away," she added. "It's not just me going out there, remember that. Speaking of which, I should get down to the Batcave. They're probably waiting for me."

Olivia and Alex kissed passionately. Then Alex firmly held onto Olivia's arm. "I'm holding you to that promise," she said. "In fact, Jonah and I will be holding you to it, Liv. Because, if it does turn out that I have to raise that little guy, I will, and very gladly. But not without you, my love. I want Jonah to grow up knowing _both_ of his mommies."

Olivia gazed at Alex with such love just then. "You would be willing to take care of him on a permanent basis?"

"How could I not?" Alex replied. "Is that what you want, as well?"

Olivia smiled at the thought of Jonah staying with them forever. "Yes, I do. But we should brace ourselves for the event that they might find his family, Alex. I've still got people looking for them."

"I sincerely hope they do find Jonah's family. But until then, I'm going to cherish every moment we have with Jonah."

"I will, too." Olivia kissed Alex tenderly on the lips. "That little guy is so very lucky to have you, Alex. As am I."

"I'm the lucky one, here, hon. Please be careful tonight, for both my sake and Jonah's."

"I will. See you later."

Olivia went downstairs to the main floor. She was about to head to the secret doorway that led to the Batcave until she heard shouting from down the hall. When she went to see what it was, Olivia found Dick, Barbara and Chloe in the gym. Clad in workout clothing, they were all barefoot on the soft mat floor. Olivia arrived just in time to see Barbara expertly block an attack, then spin around and kick her foot right at Dick's stomach, which he dodged at the last minute.

'My God, how far she's come!' Olivia marveled, as she watched Barbara fight so effortlessly and flawlessly. She still recalled when Babs was just this exuberant little kid who made up her own Batgirl costume and shoehorned her way into their secret lives. Now she was a vital member of the team, and Olivia couldn't be more proud of her.

"Whoo!" Chloe cheered, as she applauded Barbara. "That's it, Babs, don't take any guff from him! Hey, Liv," she said, when Olivia stood next to her. "You hear the hospital's keeping Bruce for several days?"

"Yeah, have you heard anything else? Did they say whether the paralysis is permanent?"

Chloe shook her head. "Rachel said the doctors are still mum as to whether Bruce will walk again or not; they want to keep doing more tests. I guess we'll know in another day or two. Until then, happy thoughts, huh?"

"Hey Liv, you want to give it a go?" Dick asked.

"What, on the mat? Oh, no, that's ok, I'm good."

Dick nodded with a smug smile. "Yeah, I understand. You're too afraid to take me on. No problem."

Both Barbara and Chloe let out shocked gasps as Olivia, knowing a challenge when she heard one, slowly removed her shoes, then strode over to where he stood. "What exactly are you…whoa!"

Dick charged at her just then, and Olivia was stunned at how her body instinctively ducked the blow that he aim at her head. She brought up her knee to his stomach, but it got side-swiped as Dick turned sideways and entwined one of his legs around hers, instantly knocking Olivia to the mat. When he fell upon her, Olivia brought her legs up so that her feet were pressed against his chest. She was about to push him off with all of her might, when….

"HOLD IT!" Chloe called. She peered at a cell phone. "The Batcomputer's going nuts right now, something's up in Gotham City!"

Dick immediately got off of Liv and offered her a hand, which she accepted. As they made their way to the Batcave, he said, "Damn, you did a great job at handling yourself."

"I was taught by the best," Olivia said, thinking back to her sparring sessions with Bruce. There were moments when she got so angry at him that she really wanted to hurt him, but ultimately, Bruce had turned a woman who was already well-trained by the NYPD into a lean, mean fighter.

As they rode down to the Batcave in the elevator, Olivia noted Chloe was intently staring at her cell. "Multiple calls about armed intruders at the Stanwyck art gallery, " she said. "But no more details than that."

"Hey, since when does the Batcomputer send messages on cell phones?" Olivia asked.

"Since Chloe made some modifications to it," Barbara replied with a grin.

"Hope Bruce doesn't mind," Chloe said sheepishly.

"Are you kidding?" Dick said. "He'd welcome any improvement from anywhere."

Olivia nodded, grinning. "Yeah, he would."

The elevator opened to reveal Alfred standing by the Batcomputer, which flared an 'Alert' signal on its main screen. "Armed thugs have burst into the Stanwyck art gallery," he announced. "The Stanwyck is presently showing the work of the renowned artist, Maynard Hassling."

"Art thieves?" Barbara asked, as she ran to her dressing room. "Could be worse, I guess. We could be squaring off against Bane."

"I'd love a shot at _that_ bastard," Dick growled. He ran into his own dressing room.

Olivia entered her dressing room to put on her Huntress outfit, then she stopped dead in shock. She went back outside and said, "Alfred, where's my outfit?"

Alfred stood by Chloe, who took a seat in front of the Batcomputer. "I apologize, Liv. I forgot to tell you that I took the liberty of making some changes to your outfit."

"So that _is_ my outfit?" Olivia said in astonishment.

"Yes, it is. Do let me know what you think of it."

Olivia went back in and put on the outfit. It fit like a glove, and was flexible and comfortable.

And now it also had a cowl with a matching cape.

She stared at herself, clad in this black armored outfit, in the mirror. 'I'm a dead ringer for the Batman,' she thought. 'Well, maybe not close up. But from afar, I could pass for him, which was the whole idea. As usual, Alfred nailed it.'

"Oh Gawd!" Batgirl cried when Olivia stepped out into the Batcave in her new outfit. "That's so cool!"

"Yeah," Robin said with a smile. "Nice, Huntress; real nice."

"I almost thought you were Batman for a split second there," Chloe said, after she glanced away from the Batcomputer to give Olivia a double take.

"I-I'm not taking over for him," Olivia nervously told Robin. "I-I could never take over from him, but I just thought that…you know…just maybe if people saw me, that they would…."

Robin just placed his hands on her shoulders in a comforting manner. "I know, Huntress, you want to keep the Batman legend alive. I understand, and I'm all for it. You ready to roll?"

"Yeah," Olivia said, relieved that he was all right with her idea. "Let's go."

"I'll take the Tumbler," Robin said, "you ladies can take the Batmobile."

"Got it," Olivia replied. She turned to the Batcomputer. "Any updates?"

Chloe gave Robin a kiss goodbye, then she shook her head in the negative. Still barefoot and clad in her workout clothes, her one concession to the cooler air of the Batcave was to throw on a sweatshirt over her tank top. Seated as she was in a cross-legged position in the chair before the Batcomputer, Chloe had the oddly endearing look of an extremely casual, high-tech guru. "No further updates. The chatter from the GCPD is saying that the phone lines have been cut."

"Even the cell phone reception?" Batgirl asked.

"Jammed," Chloe added.

"We're facing professionals," Robin said, as he headed for the Tumbler. "It could well be Bane, or the Joker."

"Or both," Alfred anxiously called after them. "Do be careful, please, all of you!"

"We will," Olivia promised, as she got behind the wheel of the Batmobile.

Once the cockpit was sealed up, they heard Chloe's voice say, "Oracle is up and running. Comms check?"

"Check, we read you loud and clear, Oracle," Batgirl said. Then she turned to Olivia and added, "Never thought I'd be calling somebody else Oracle. Feels weird…."

"Reading you loud and clear, Oracle," they heard Robin say over the comms.

"Comms systems are at full operational status," Chloe confirmed. "Happy hunting, guys."

Olivia got the Batmobile's engine purring and ready; the sleek black vehicle sounded like it was ready for a night out on the town. "Robin, you want to take the Tumbler out first?"

"Beauty before the beast; the Batmobile before the Tumbler," he replied. "You take point, Huntress. I'll be right behind you."

Olivia drove the Batmobile down the short tunnel to the private road outside. The large bulk of the Tumbler was close behind them.

"You're clear all the way down to the highway," Chloe reported. "I'm also seeing very little traffic on the highway leading into the city. You guys have an open road ahead of you."

Once they were in the night air, Olivia accelerated the Batmobile to twice its former speed. She was pleased to see the Tumbler was keeping pace behind.

"Just a few minutes, now," Batgirl said.

"Yep, another wild and crazy night in Gotham City, coming up," Olivia muttered.

They sped on silently into the night, heading for the city lights in the distance.

**To be continued...**


End file.
